The Crisis in the Health Service (2002)

The Crisis in the Health Service and a few pages from the last days of Lenin.

The Guardian of the 6th April 2002 carries an article on the crisis in the Health Service. In 1997, the waiting list for inpatient treatment in English hospitals consisted of 1158004 persons. This was at the time the Labour administration took over from the Tories. At the end of February 2002, there were 1050000 patients awaiting non-emergency admission for treatment. After five years of rhetoric, Blair, Brown and Co had succeeded in reducing waiting lists by 10804. (It should be noted that only 1900 of the total awaiting in-patient treatment had waited for more than fifteen months).

Blair, in his pre-election speeches, finally promised to raise health spending per head of population to the European average of 2000 euros annually. (The Irish Republic spends 1500 euros annually per capita on health According to David Begg of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions).

During the closing years of his active political life, Lenin addressed the problem of how to bring the bureaucracy under the control of workers. The Workers and Peasants Inspectorate was established as a People's Commissariat of the Council of People's Commissars (the Russian Cabinet). In January 1923, before his last stroke Lenin suggested that the W.P.I, be composed of 50 to 75 members of the most conscientious, best trained and knowledgeable workers and peasants who would be members of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

This instruction was designed to combat a flourishing bureaucracy case. What then is the relevance of a forgotten institution to today's health service?

The health service is a class institution and there are wide discrepancies in income. Anecdotal evidence from nurses suggests that consultants take in £100,000 annually. This salary is not just outrageously high but also secure. Democracy requires control of the health service by the workers. When cleaners earn only£ 5.00 or £200 weekly, can a salary of £2000 per week be justified? We think not. An extension of democracy must mean the freezing of consultants salaries until the lowest paid earn a quarter of their outsize salaries.

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