Letters / Elective dictatorship
Leaked meeting minutes show NHS Scotland chiefs discussed creating a possible “two-tier” health service that charges the “wealthy” (BBC website: NHS chiefs in Scotland discuss having wealthy pay for treatment).
“Fundamental reform must be on the table” to avert a collapse in which “unscheduled care is going to fall over…(and then)…planned care falls over.”
The Scottish BMA says Scotland’s NHS is in a “perilous situation” and urgent action is needed … about 6,000 nursing and midwifery posts are unfilled while A&E waiting time performance continues to sink to record lows.
Now, rather than breaking the fundamental principle of “care based on need, free at the point of use”, the answer to the alleged “billion-pound hole” is surely increased funding from Westminster?
Alas, no. UK government finances are in a mess.
Taxation is already at a 70-year high and energy bills have soared due to green policies. Banning and discouraging domestic fossil fuel production resulted in dependence on Russia, a disastrous decision that has led to unprecedented gas and electricity prices.
Not content, chancellor Hunt has raised the ‘energy price cap’ by £500 to £3000/year and added eight per cent taxes on motor fuel, taking money straight from citizens’ pockets.
The result is high inflation and rising interest rates causing living standards to tumble. The Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts:
“(Living standards) Down 7% over this year and next, much the biggest fall in living memory……”
Yet more taxes would be like draining blood from a haemorrhaging patient.
The message is clear. Climate change trumps health.
The complete absence of parliamentary opposition on green issues has produced an elective dictatorship whose policies have brought disastrous economic and social consequences, especially, for those who can least afford it.
John Tulloch
Aberdeen
