For the first time ever, an NHS hospital is going to be taken over by a private company, it has been announced this morning: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/72899cf2-0b2c-11e1-ae56-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1dHwr4IS2 . The hospital in question is Hinchingbrooke, in Cambridgeshire here in the Eastern Region of England.
In my capacity as Co-ordinator of the Eastern Region Green Party, I want to say plainly this morning that it's just plain wrong to allow a private company to make profits out of people's ill-health. This is a new stage in the privatisation of the NHS; we are losing Britain's most-loved institution, before our very eyes.
I have been to Hinchingbrooke and have stood with the workers and local people who have been campaigning for years to stop this NHS hospital from falling into private hands. Successive governments - first the so-called 'Labour' Party, and now the Conservative-LibDem Coalition - have done nothing to secure the future of Hinchingbrooke. Only the Green Party has stood up firmly for keeping our beloved NHS public. We now see the consequences of the Government's failure to help Hinchingbrooke: privatisation. Many more hospitals will now be privatised across this Region and across the country, unless together we stand up, say 'No more!', and stop the rot.
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