A-Infos (en) Britain, Aanarchist journal Direct Action #41- Organising - Comments:

Comment: Death by Superbugs: The scandalous legacy of NHS funding cuts, 
performance targets and privatisation ---- If one thing reflects the sorry state 
of the NHS today more than anything else, it is the superbug epidemic. According 
to recent figures, hospital superbugs like MRSA and C-Difficile are now 
responsible for 5,000 deaths per year, with up to 100,000 other patients being 
infected. ---- Following the Commission for Healthcare Inspection’s revelations 
of 90 deaths due to C-Difficile between 2004-6 in Tonbridge and Kent NHS Trust, 
there was a public inquest. One key causal factor identified was the Trust’s 
preoccupation with performance targets, which in turn led to practices like 
patients being told to relieve themselves in their beds rather than in ward 
toilet facilities.

Generally poor standards of cleanliness were observed, as was high bed turnover. 
One former Consultant reflected that privatisation of cleaning services and 
repeated management restructures also contributed.

Putting the NHS at the mercy of the market (by both Labour and the Tories) was 
always going to have this impact. Labour-intensive services such as hospital 
cleaning can only be made profitable by cutting wages and jobs. Since 1984, 
Unison figures reveal a fall in the number of cleaners from 100,000 to just 
55,000 today. Privatisation has also meant these crucial services have become 
organisationally detached from the NHS.

The obsession with meeting targets, another outcome of Government policy, 
focuses services on providing an appearance of efficiency. Unfortunately, 
reduced waiting times and increased patient throughput are realised largely at 
the expense of quality of care. As a consequence, ailments go untreated or 
undiagnosed, leading to further human and financial costs further down the line. 
So much for ‘efficiency’. Taxpayers and patients alike are getting a raw deal to 
say the very least.

In the wake of the deaths in Tonbridge and Kent, the Commission for Healthcare 
Inspection reported:

     Many staff told us that senior managers were still reluctant to implement 
major infection control measures such as closing wards or using buffer beds to 
separate infected patients from others on the ward. They said this was because 
of the shortage of beds and the need to meet targets.

The report continued:

     The vast majority of nurses and other clinical staff interviewed considered 
that poor care was in large part due to having inadequate staffing levels.

Health services should be universal, comprehensive and free at the point of 
delivery. They should be organised, delivered and controlled directly by workers 
and responsive to patients. The superbug epidemic is symptomatic of 
privatisation and service cuts started by the Tories, and continued 
enthusiastically by New Labour. Whilst services remain at the mercy of meddling 
politicians, bureaucrats and market forces, problems such as superbugs will remain.
------------------------------------------------

Comment:

The ‘Caring’ Face of New Labour - part 2: How modern social policy exploits 
unpaid carers and the elderly

Anyone who has had to give up work to care for a chronically ill or disabled 
friend or relative will know that the support you get from the state is, to put 
it mildly, shameful. As well as the emotional and physical demands, severe 
financial penalties compound an already difficult and often stressful set of 
circumstances. And, with the increasingly ageing UK population, estimates 
suggest that those of us engaged in unpaid care could rise to 10 million in the 
next 30 years.

A survey of 300 carers undertaken by Carers UK last year showed that the current 
benefits system fails to allow carers an acceptable standard of living, neither 
recognising nor valuing their contribution – see box below for further details.

Yet the support provided by unpaid carers is estimated to save the state £87 
billion per year. But enabling practical support to carers, it seems, is far 
less fashionable to Brown and Co. than courting multi-millionaire tax dodgers, 
fighting imperialist wars and replenishing the costly Trident program.

Unpaid carers aren’t the only ones to suffer due to New Labour’s market driven 
social policy. The way our society treats the elderly, particularly those 
requiring nursing home care, is also nothing short of scandalous.

It is well documented how those requiring residential nursing/care are often 
forced to sell their homes to pay for it. With ‘Continuing Care’ legislation 
healthcare should be free, yet thousands in England and Wales are still charged, 
as a 2006 Panorama programme, ‘The National Homes Swindle’, confirmed. The 
relative of one woman with Parkinson’s and Dementia who was forced to sell her 
home, summed up the frustration of many: “It’s outrageous theft and it’s going 
on in this country hundreds and hundreds of times”.
Although New Labour criticised the Tories for forcing 40,000 pensioners to sell 
their homes, and Blair said he didn’t want “a country where the only way 
pensioners can get long term care is by selling their home”, nothing has 
changed. This led one lawyer to comment: “It’s dishonest and it’s quite 
astonishing that it’s gone on for so long unaddressed”.

2-tier nursing homes

To make matters worse, a 2-tier model of nursing home care has emerged. Despite 
massive fees, the standard of care in most care homes is, to say the very least, 
basic. You might get fed and toileted, a token entertainer or a bit of 
physiotherapy now and again, but by and large you’re just left to vegetate in 
front of the TV. In some you even have to share a room with someone you’ve never 
met before. This is no exaggeration.

Recently, a new breed of ‘super care home’ has sprung up. With state of the art 
facilities and activities galore, the sufficiently financially endowed can enjoy 
their final years in stimulating and dignified conditions beyond the financial 
reach of most normal folk.

Inhumane social policies wreak untold havoc on vulnerable families and 
individuals, many of whom, don’t forget, have paid tax and national insurance 
for much their lives. Why should unpaid carers be effectively punished for their 
benevolence? Why should the elderly be forced to sell up for the ‘privilege’ of 
living out their final days in second rate care homes? Such indictments of 
current social policy speak volumes about our rulers’ priorities.

A decent society would promote compassion and provide a good standard of care to 
all, not just those with money. Carers (paid and unpaid) and those receiving 
care are an ever-growing body of discontents who need to organise, together with 
workers, to both expose injustice and take robust action to fight for social 
justice.

The 2007 Carers UK survey of 300 carers found that:

     * 72% are worse off since they started caring
     * 65% are not in paid work
     * 54% gave up work to care
     * 53% say financial worries affect their health
     * 33% are in debt
     * 30% are cutting back on food or heating
     * 10% can’t afford to pay their rent or mortgage
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