Demonstrating our support for the NHS

I didn’t expect to spend the first really good day of glorious spring weather marching along the Thames, but I’m glad I did.

I joined with 10,000 other people demonstrating their support for the NHS and the welfare state.

The BMA’s Look After Our NHS campaign, conducted over the last 12 months, has met with an overwhelmingly positive response from doctors and members of the public.

It has, however, drawn some vitriolic criticism - almost entirely from pro-business pressure groups - who have variously attacked it as inaccurate, alarmist and excessively critical.

It was reassuring and invigorating, therefore, to join with railway workers, prison officers, pensioners, teachers, patients and others who deliver and rely on essential services and who share our concerns about the future delivery of healthcare.

It was dispiriting to hear that so many other public services are being eroded and face financial threats. Time and again we heard about potential job losses, service cuts, threats to pensions and reduction in quality of service - all proposed in the name of ‘efficiency savings’ to address the national debt. 

The marchers on Saturday were not among those who took high risk financial gambles; they didn’t sell our gold reserves at rock bottom prices; they didn’t raid private pension funds for the benefit of the exchequer and they didn’t squander tax revenue on ill-conceived contracts and costly wars. They are the workers and tax payers of today and yesterday who have already seen their taxes used to shore up a disreputable financial industry and are now see themselves once more the target for further deprivation.

All the doctors who came to the demo should feel proud to have stood alongside so many caring and concerned members of society on a day when the good weather was not the only remarkable event.

Tags: Privatisation