World Health Day was on 7 April, a day where public health achievements should be celebrated, yet simultaneously the Coronavirus pandemic was creating devastation worldwide. There has been an unprecedented barrage of statements and promises regarding the role that public health plays in our society, and the importance placed on public health professionals has been indisputable, even from those who are set to destroy it.
We don’t have to travel too far back in time to recall the EU’s stance. Brussels asked its member states a total of 63 times to reduce its healthcare spending (2001-2018). It was in fact the second most pressing issue, with the first being, asking its member states to increase the retirement age on 105 occasions. Public health for the EU is just another profitable market, and that is why the process remains the same: Disassembly of the public sector in favour of privatisation, sacrificing peoples’ health for the sake of insurance company profits, private hospitals, and most deceptive are the private companies exploiting the lack of funding to services and outsourcing them to private health firms.
In the EU, where Greece has emerged unglorified champion for 2009-2018, with 8.7% cuts every year from health expenditures; Where Italy, in a decade, suffered financial cuts of 37 billion, 70,000 beds and closed 359 hospital departments; Where France, since 2013, has cut 17,000 health professionals and from 2014 reduced 21 billion from social benefits and healthcare; Where Spain, a western democracy has needed intervention from Amnesty International for its criminal surgical waiting times; Where the UK is almost 160,000 beds short in relation to 1980, and where in the period 2011-2013, 10.3 billion was cut and the 2016-2020 plan aimed to reduce 22 billion and shrink the health sector by 20%; Where Cyprus, the only EU member state without a public health system, has been struggling for two decades to build its own Public Health Services, with health companies, hand in hand with their political reps, changing the structure of public health altogether and moulding into a multi-insurance one, and the government cutting 500 million from the public health sector.
EU president of the Top Science Funding Agency, Mauri Ferrari, has resigned due to the EU’s diabolical response to the Coronavirus crisis; his advice – to fund scientists to fight against pandemics with medicines, vaccines and diagnoses – was ignored!
The so called Big and Might EU, is struggling to show solidarity, with member states doing the best they can to battle the devastating effects that this COVID-19 pandemic is having on their country, whilst trying to avoid brotherly backstabbing in their attempts to secure supplies. In actual fact, support has been given by economic-political rivals, China, Russia and the ‘undeveloped third world’ country, Cuba!
We are at WAR! Yes, we are, but not a war involving us all! Ordinary citizens, workers, the unemployed and pensioners are on the battlefield. I’ve yet to see which Military Battalion the large private companies have joined. The culmination is the battle of the bankers; I have only read about redundancy threats if there are no profits for the companies, and about the vital importance of the banking system coming out unscathed.
The time has come for individual liability! Yes, we will discipline ourselves to limit the spread, we will lock ourselves in our homes, we will not see our relatives, not even our children. Unfortunately, people are departing this world alone, women are giving birth alone, but the more the state’s advice is ignored and we don’t take responsibility for our actions, the longer this situation will last and it lies on us all, just as every citizen makes up their state, each of us can make the necessary changes.
Health is a social requirement not a commodity. It is the responsibility of the state, just as every parent has to tend to their children. Just as military defence and foreign policy, so too should education, housing and employment be prioritised, even more so now in times of socio-economic crises. Facing consumable and equipment shortages, dividing citizens into those insured and uninsured is not acceptable in 2020. Everyone has the right to quality, public and free health care!
There is a greater urgency for us all to assume our responsibilities, to set and implement a centrally designed program for the health of all people. Medical supplies – Staffing – Infrastructure are all state responsibilities. International cooperation and support at a commercial, economic, research and development and scientific level, are our statues to the EU and where it is needed by central planning, private companies should be commandeered by the state in service of all! (WE ARE AT WAR and it is time for our side to be heard).
Personally, the ‘Clap for Carers’ applauding and show of support for the NHS every Thursday at 8pm is a good way for us to show our gratitude, but it does not even scratch the surface. If it did, we would be doing it day and night, accompanied by explosive firework displays. This pandemic, although difficult, and extremely painful, given the tragic, huge loss of human life, is something that will pass and when it does, it will find us ‘at war’ yet again.
The same forces that damage, criticise and sell out the national health systems, will be present again in service of capital, the private health sector. Once again, the question will be shouted: who will be paying to support state programmes?! Will it be the low paid, who’ve seen their wages cut, or will we see the wealthy and the major money-makers and profit hoarders pay their fair share of tax? Once again there will be a class clash! As for the individual, the following day will find us with more solidarity on a local and international level, more conscious, after all, we have learned the hard way that politics designed for the few, defines our lives. We will be more prepared and more determined to struggle and fight for our rights, and for the future we deserve!
Andreas Grigoriou
Secretary AKEL in Britain
