TOO EXPENSIVE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 79, Issue 7123, 21 October 1949, Page 7

TOO EXPENSIVE

BRITAIN’S NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE ESTIMATED £228 MILLION FOR 1949-50 Britain’s National Health Service received the Royal Assent in November, 1946, and started out on its career on July 5, 1948. In principle and broad outline the scheme had been formulated and approved by Mr Churchill’s war-time Coalition Government. But it fell to the 'lot of the present Government to bring the scheme to actuality; and this they did with all their fervour for drastic nationalisation. The scheme was, and still is, handled by that philosopher of nationalisation, Mr Aneurin Bevan, the Minister for Health. Long before the Act came into force the medical profession, in general, and Mr Bevan, in particular, were at loggerheads.' The doctors complained of an obdurate temper and dragooning tactics on the part of the Minister during the course lof the long-drawn-out discussions which tbok place | .between them and' the Ministry. The doctors sought an assurance that the duties and responsibilities implicit in the practice of their profession would not ba affected by the State scheme, and that their professional status would not thereby be reduced to simpiy that of a servant of the State. Their protests ware, unavailing, and the Act was put into effect with their fears, for the most part, unallayed. Rush to Doctors The National Health Service has now run almost a year. Right from the start there was a rush to the doctors. Being a “free” service many people were going to see that they got it, whether they needed it or not. The doctors have been overwhelmed with work. In addition, There is much extra paperwork—returns, formfilling and “red-tape”—which seems to be part and parcel of any Government system. In the rush and overwork, it was remarkable how the doctors manage to cope with their work so well. Many of them feel that the conditions under which they work do not allow them to give of their best. “We were taught in medical school on examining a patient,” one of them has said, “to ask ourselves. From what is this patient isuffering? Now we ask: Ts this patient sufijenilng from anything at all? Does he need medical attention?’” After a few months of running, it became obvious that the cost of the Health Service had been greatly underestimated. National insurance makes an annual contribution of £24 million, but this is only a small easing of the total cost of “socialised” medicine. Using the Brake In February it was estimated on the showing of the first six months, that the net cost to the tax-payer would be £185,225,000 for the fiscal period instead of the budgetted figure of £132,425,000. A supplementary sum of £52,800,000 was voted with acclaim by the Socialists in the House of Commons, to fill the gap in the Service’s finances The estimated cost for the fiscal year 1949-50 is £228,424,000. -In April the Chancellor of the Exchequer applied the brake. He warned the nation that Health and the other services had ultimately to be paid for by thia? taxpayer. In other words, if the taxpayer wanted more social service this had to be paid for by taxation in hard cash. Almost immediately the Government slashed the grants to the hospitals which, with few exceptions, had been taken within the national scheme. Under the scheme the country's hospitals, when taken over, were divided into 14 regions, with a hospital board for each of the regions. The boards are directly responsible to the Minister of Health. With the exception of 141 hospitals, in which are included county isolation hospitals, .all hospitals were taken over from independent management —to the number, of 2688. The cuts in the grants to hospitals are serious. As an example, London’s oldest hospital, St. Bartholomew’s is asked to cut its yearly budget by

£300,000. Similarly, in the north, the United Manchester Hospitals are asked to make do on an income reduced by. £200,000. The Manchester Regional Board have worked out that if the cuts in capital and maintenance estimates are put into effect there will be 2019 fewer hospital beds available to their already long waiting-list of patients. Commenting on these proposed cuts the British Medical Journal stated in May: “Regional boards fear that some hospitals will also have to be closed. If blocks of wards were to be shut down the cost pei’ occupied bod in the wards remaining open would increase and hospital economy would be in a still more parlous state. “All this comes at a time when it has been estimated that nearly 600,000 hospital beds in the country are out of use, principally because of shortages of nurses.” In spite of a cut of close on £lO million, the hospitals are still to receive more money than they did last year the Ministry says. Hospital committees, it'is also stated, are free to appeal in respect of their individual cuts. The British Medical Association’s journal sums up. “The arbitrary fashion in which these cuts have been made suggests that hospital finance has got out of hand and the Ministry of Health has temporarily lost command of the situation.”