The NHS: been and gone in a lifetime?
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| Programme cover |
Back in
the early 1980s, when we lived in Luton, I was doing research on Bedfordshire
folk songs and I came across something called 'A Christmas Merrymaking in the
Oldenew Times' written in 1888 by a Mr H.O.Williams for the Parish Church
Yuletide Festivities. It was described as a ‘masque’ and was a cross between a
pantomime and a mummers play. Some of the jokes were a bit obscure—to do with
the politics of the times—but others translated very well into the Thatcherite
Britain of the 1980s. I presented it as a shadow puppet play several times and,
a few years later, did a radio version for Chiltern Radio with local folk
luminaries like Barry Goodman, Graham Meek and Ray Aspden playing some of the
roles. There were 5 or 6 songs included in the script. I don’t know what the
original music was like but I found that they fitted well known folk tunes
beautifully.
Most of
the songs don’t work outside the play but this one will stand alone and I’ve
been singing it quite regularly in recent years. It is Williams’ words set to the trad tune of A Sailor’s Life (as made famous by Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention Listen here
For my version of A Doctor's Life Click here
Oh,
a gruesome life is the doctor’s life
As
he calls on his patients ill,
He
chops at the great and he chips at the small,
And
he puts it all down on the bill!
CHORUS
Oh! Ho! For the lancet, the potion, the leach,
Rare tools in a master hand,
And so long as they use them to cure our ills
Sing cheers for the Doctor band!
With
his gold headed cane and his tall top hat
And
his coat tails all a-dangling around
He
doles out the medicine that keeps folks ill
And
he carves at the limbs that are sound.
Oh!
What does he dream of, the doctor glum,
As
he dozes at night in his bed?
He
dreams of the fevers, the fits and the plagues
That
are bringing him his daily bread.
The
greedy doctor has a vested interest in keeping his patients ill and getting
paid!
“You
may not be able to read a doctor's handwriting and prescription, but you'll
notice his bills are neatly typewritten.” (Earl Wilson, U.S.
journalist)
Other
quotes:
“Though
the doctors treated him, let his blood, and gave him medications to drink, he
nevertheless recovered.” (Tolstoy, War
& Peace)
“Doctors
are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of
which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing.” (Voltaire)
Historically
doctors were not highly thought of. They were called quacks, sawbones and such
like and were usually no more qualified than the barbers who they succeeded. If
you called in a doctor you were either very rich or very desperate. You were
more likely to healed by the wise woman or the local witch whose remedies were
based on centuries of trial and error.
Now
though, things have changed. The National Health Service is one of our
best-loved institutions, as shown by its portrayal in the Olympic Games opening
ceremony in 2012 but it seems under threat at the moment.
English
newspapers and all the other media have been full of material about the
National Health Service recently. (When it isn’t Brexit!) There are also
hundreds of campaigns to save local health facilities—hospitals, care homes,
other services… and it has all coincided with the 70th anniversary of the start
of the NHS on 5th July 1948.
For
those of you who might be reading this outside the UK (or those who are too
young to remember much about it and just take it for granted) the NHS was one
of the most momentous things implemented by the post war Labour Government.
Before that, as in most other countries, if you needed medical treatment you
would have had to pay the doctor or the hospital in the same way that you paid
the plumber or the car mechanic. If you couldn’t afford it you couldn’t have
it.
From
that date on though, everyone was entitled to free medical care paid for out of
taxes.
It was a
great idea and it was, for a while, the envy of the world… and it would have
remained so if later governments had given it the resources it needed. Most
people I know would willingly pay a few pence more on Income Tax in return for
a good NHS.
Right from the start dentists and opticians were not fully included which was a
mistake and hospital doctors, particularly the most highly qualified
specialists, were allowed to continue private practice at the same time as
working for the NHS—big mistakes! In fact the whole idea was vigorously opposed
by many in the medical profession right from the start!
When
money got tight the Blair government paid for hospitals by PFI which gave the
NHS debts which will go on for ever and to make ends meet more and more aspects
of the service are being sold off or farmed out; bought up by (largely)
American firms and the whole NHS idea is creaking at the joints—like most 70
year olds!
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| Pete and his dad, June 1947 |
It has
never occurred to me to pay for a doctor. I have always assumed that I will get
what I need and, luckily, I haven’t needed anything very complicated so I have.
That is apart from in my first few months:
I was
born 17 months before the NHS began operating and my birth cost my parents a
fortune! Many years ago, when I started
doing family history research, I asked my parents to write their life stories.
When it got to 1947 Dad wrote:
‘Our first son Peter Richard was born in Ashford
Hospital… We have receipts showing we
paid for 12 days in hospital at £5.5.0 per week = £8.19.0, and to Dr Bentley of North Street:
£4.4.0 for professional attendance.’
So Dad remembered my birth as a shopping list of prices! A total of £13.3.0 which does not
sound a huge amount but the average weekly wage at the time was only about £5.
I don’t
know how they scraped together nearly 3 weeks wages to pay for that amount of
time in hospital or why it was thought necessary. I wonder whether Dad’s
parents contributed because Mum and Dad were living with them at the time.
That had
puzzled me over the years—particularly the ‘why’ - and I had not been able to come to a
conclusion until I happened to see part of a programme in the BBC series
Midwives. I don’t like the series at all—it strikes me as very smug and coy and
I don’t like the religiosity of it all, (a horrible mixture of sex, religion
and hypocrisy!) but the bit I saw was when a woman who was about to give birth
was trying to ensure that no-one else was in the house because she would have
been embarrassed about the noise and the mess involved if there had been. It
struck me that knowing my parents, and particularly my grandparents, that would
have been the reason Mum went away to a neutral place. (A few months after my
birth she and I went stay with her parents rather than stay with the Castles
and I bet that was for similar reasons…)
So, when
I was born there was no National Health Service to look after me. I wonder if
there will still be one when I need it at the end of my life?
For more see my new web site https://petecastle.co.uk
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