Harney's back...
NO TO HOSPITAL CO-LOCATION
Free public healthcare now

Socialist Party leaflet - Available as PDF here

Mary Harney has been re-appointed Minister for Health and the Fianna Fail- PD-Green Party Government plan to drive ahead with plans for privatisation in the health service.

Hospital co-location will mean up to 10 private hospitals being built on public hospital grounds. It will see big business tycoons like Larry Goodman and Dermot Desmond investing in health for profit. This will represent a giant step in the direction of a US-style health service run for private profit not public need.

Hospital co-location will mean:

• A one billion euro-plus bill to the taxpayer in tax subsidies and other costs

• Land gobbled up that could be used instead to expand public hospitals

• Rising health insurance costs as big business investors seek to maximise profit

• A massive strengthening of the two-tier nature of the health service with much poorer facilities and longer queues for those who cannot afford to pay.

Co-location most expensive

Thousands of extra beds are needed in our hospitals but co-located hospitals are the most expensive way to provide these extra beds. The cost to the taxpayer will be €1.2 billion to build hospitals that will belong to private companies!

Co-location means constant waiting lists

The new private hospitals will treat public patients through the National Treatment Purchase Fund – more taxpayers money going to private health care companies. There will be an incentive for the government not to invest in the public health system to overcome the shortfalls that cause waiting lists because they will support paying the private hospitals to do the job. This new system will also be open to abuse by consultants who could transfer patients from the public to the private hospital for their own financial gain.

Public superior to private

A private hospital bed is not as good as a public bed because private hospitals do not provide the full integrated health care that public hospitals provide. The private hospitals will cherry pick the less expensive procedures leaving the complex cases and the chronically ill to the public hospitals – because you can’t make a profit from the chronically ill!

Cause of the health crisis

The permanent crisis in the health service is due to the severe cuts of the 1980s when 6,000 beds were axed; a lack of government spending which is still only 90% of the EU15 average and the government’s introduction of privatisation.

For a public national health service

All of the establishment parties accept and agree with the private health care agenda. This government is a big business government that promotes the interests of private operators at the expense of the health of ordinary people. In every aspect of society, from health to transport, they push privatisation and cutbacks in public services. This agenda needs to be tackled by a movement of working people.

The Socialist Party believes that all health service unions should unite and link up with communities to oppose co-location and the privatisation of our health services. A determined campaign could put this Government under pressure by targeting its weakest link - the Green Party.

The Socialist Party campaigns for a health service which puts people before profit.

We stand for:

• No to co-location - scrap the plans now.

• Give nurses a 35 hour week and a decent wage.

• For a free publicly owned National Health Service properly funded through a progressive taxation system to provide prompt healthcare for all so that people have no need for health insurance

• Use society’s wealth for public health. For massive investment to provide the beds, facilities and staff required to solve the crisis at A&E and abolish long waiting lists for treatment
• Scrap GP and prescription charges

• For free primary healthcare. Fully equipped health centres in all communities with teams of GPs, chemists, nurses, physiotherapists and social workers including after hours services and health education

• No more subsidies to private care or privatisation. Consultants employed in the public sector should only be entitled to do public work.

Build the Socialist Alternative

• Do you think the health service should be run for peoples needs not private greed?

• Do you want to see working class people getting organised to challenge the agenda of big business and this Government?

• Do you want to see society changed? A society run for working class people not the profiteers and the speculators?

If so, join the Socialist Party - a campaigning party organising for real change.