The American Republicans opposed to Barack Obama's introduction of healthcare reforms have been bad-mouthing our NHS. How dare they? The NHS is one of my main reasons for thanking heaven I was born here, where I know that whatever my income, our free health system will look after me.
It's not perfect, no organisation of that size could be, it's bound to make some mistakes, but I don't know where I'd be without it. Probably dead. I have a thyroid condition, and every day for the last 30 years I've had free medication, like thousands of others with ongoing conditions: diabetes, epilepsy, cancer and many others. What happens to the 43 million people in the US who can't afford to pay for such things? Must they live a miserable, painful, debilitated life and die early?
My mother was cared for until 98, free, through pneumonia, stroke, angina, arthritis and a broken back. All but one of the dozens of doctors, nurses and medical staff who treated her were kind, patient and verging on saintly. She was even fitted with new false teeth at 97 by a lovely young dentist who came to our house to treat her, even though we all knew that the Grim Reaper was nearly at the door.
By that age, my mother often longed to be allowed to fade away, but our hospital seemed to pull out all the stops to keep her going. So those Republican claims that our elderly cannot receive certain treatments are fibs, or at least grossly exaggerated. The over-59s are not refused heart surgery. One of my friends, aged 70, has recently had a stent fitted; another, also 70, is about to have a valve replacement. And last year, aged 66, I had two cataracts removed.
For decades my family and friends have been in and out of our local hospital A&E like yo-yos, with our strokes, broken ankles, broken back, fishbones stuck in throats, X-rays, blood tests, scans, check-ups, and we're all still alive and healthy. We're almost fond of the place. Half our street works there – doctors, nurses, even a moral philosopher. Admittedly we've had the odd wretched experience – the long wait in casualty or for a bedpan, the horrid puréed dinners, the lost notes – but ultimately we've all been looked after, cured and called back for check-ups and therapies. All together, we have been a tremendous drain on the NHS's resources: GPs have been buzzing round to our house for red alerts – the vomiting virus, the after-stroke frights. The chemist has been churning out pills, and all of it free, except for the odd prescription.
What would have happened to us in the US had we not been able to afford insurance? I dread to think. I don't understand the Republicans. Do they want the poor to be dropping like flies? Or are they all insurers? Republicans brag that their cancer treatment is better than ours. So it is, but presumably only for the wealthy.
