Two more hospitals last night joined the list of NHS trusts forced to cut services because of their debts, taking the number of job cuts to more than 2,000 in less than a week. The Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, North London, and Queen Mary's Hospital in Sidcup, southeast London, became the latest to announce cuts despite six years of unprecedented government funding for the NHS. The Royal Free, which was praised by the Health Secretary last year for its work after the London bombings, said that about 480 posts will be lost under plans to achieve savings of œ25 million in the next year. The trust said it would ensure that redundancies were kept to a minimum. Hospital chiefs at Queen Mary's also gave warning that 190 jobs may be lost in an attempt to reduce a predicted œ13 million deficit.
Andrew Way, chief executive of the Royal Free Hospital NHS Trust, said that the cuts at his hospital would be part of a drive to improve staff efficiency and reconfigure wards. "These measures are not exceptional and are designed to bring the Royal Free into line with other organisations," he said. "We must achieve financial balance if we are to control our own future as the Government has made it very clear that it will not bail out organisations that fail to do so." Mr Way praised staff for their hard work in implementing the trust's "savings plan", which would help to ensure a robust financial future, but Geoff Martin, head of campaigns at London Health Emergency, accused the Royal Free of trying to smuggle the news out on Budget day. He said that the announcement helped to explain why Gordon Brown had "body-swerved the NHS question" in his speech. "Sacking nurses never looks good for the Government," Mr Martin said. "These cuts will have a devastating impact [on] emergency planning in London."
Andrew Lansley, the Tory health spokesman, said: "One year ago ministers were heralding NHS staff as the heroes who were delivering on waiting list targets. Today they are silent as the same NHS staff are threatened with redundancy. Faced with the failure of his billions to deliver corresponding improvements for patients, Gordon Brown and the Treasury have abandoned the NHS."
A Department of Health spokesman said: "We are reassured that these plans reflect the need to treat patients more efficiently and improve the organisation of services."
Source
QUEBEC GOVERNMENT GETS GOOD ADVICE
The doctor who took the Quebec government to the Supreme Court of Canada, causing it to change its policy on wait times and private health insurance, wants to see more privatization. In his Supreme Court case, Dr. Jacques Chaoulli argued "patients will continue to suffer and die" because of waiting lists. Last year, the high court ruled in response that some wait times for medical procedures in the province were unconstitutional.
In February, Quebec Premier Jean Charest announced guaranteed wait times for cataract surgery and hip and knee replacements and changes to make it legal for Quebecers to buy private insurance for those three medical services. On Tuesday, Chaoulli called the move a good first step, while urging the Quebec government to go further with privatization. "I would like that Quebecers have the best value for the public money they spend," Chaoulli said. He said the best way would be to allow more private medicine, including:
* Allowing doctors to work in both the public and private systems, such as at a public hospital and a private clinic, rather than one or the other.
* Privatizing medical schools and hospitals.
* Loosening legal restrictions that limit private insurance.
The ideas were outlined in a 40-page document Chaoulli submitted to a provincial government commission looking into health reforms.
Source
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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?
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