Where the Rainbow Ends

 

“Since Blair, the NHS has been sold off piece by piece. Now, the mendacious Matt Hancock and fellow Tory extremists are accelerating privatisation under cover of a state of fear. It’s a power grab. Wake up. Get angry. Or the NHS is lost.” JOHN PILGER

The windows in my street are full of rainbows and “Thank You NHS” signs. On Thursday evenings the occupants stand outside their homes and give audible expression for their gratitude.

 

That is important, yes, but we must recognise that the NHS has already been cut to pieces and ‘profitted’ off. I've had first-hand evidence of this from my own hospital experiences as I spat out the results of Serco catering: the morning breakfasts of damp, cold toast trucked in from Swansea.

Matt Hancock recently put Serco in charge of the phone lines for Covid-19 contact tracing. At the same time, the company G4s was awarded the contract for testing and providing security at the ‘phantom’ Nightingale hospitals. Meanwhile, Capita are recruiting returning doctors and nurses. Deloitte's, with their expertise of helping government to privatise our national resources, are advising on PPE. Oh—and Amazon are delivering testing kits, the ones that are recorded as having been sent, but never reached their destinations.

There is no record of any of this important health work being carried out by the actual NHS. One more thing—the Royal Mail workers offer to deliver the kits for free was ignored.

The biggest scandal of all are Covid-19 deaths in care homes. Three years ago, in a government simulation of an influenza epidemic, Exercise Cygnus forewarned us as to what a Covid-19 type crisis could do in care homes. Its conclusion was that the UK was woefully unprepared. The report was hushed up with Matt Hancock telling us that, “Everything that was recommended was done.” The Chief Executive of Care England, Martin Green, declared this to be a lie.

Covid-19 has swept through care homes, killing nearly 7,000 up to 1 May. I personally know of a premier North London home which has recorded a death rate of 25%.

This is, I guess, the price we have to pay for ‘herd immunity’ and for keeping the anti-semite Jeremy Corbyn out of power.

Don’t take my word for it. You can read Cat Hobbs in The Guardian, David Pegg, Robert Booth and David Conn also in The Guardian, me in The London Economic and Tracy Keeling in The Canary.