Analysis comment

Ireland nationalises its health service in response to CV crisis

All citizens have equal access to healthcare regardless of insurance

The Irish government has nationalised all the country’s health facilities in a move to combat the coronavirus pandemic, giving everyone equal access to healthcare regardless of insurance.

Unlike the Tory government in the UK, which is buying capacity from private health providers, Ireland has ‘drafted’ 2,000 beds, thousands of staff and nine laboratories.

Irish health minister Simon Harris said there could be “no room for public versus private” when Ireland was facing the COVID-19 crisis:

We must of course have equality of treatment, patients with this virus will be treated for free, and they’ll be treated as part of a single, national hospital service.

For the duration of this crisis the State will take control of all private hospital facilities and manage all of the resources for the common benefit of all of our people…

There can be no room for public versus private when it comes to pandemic.

Irish citizens are already calling for this arrangement to be made permanent.

The coronavirus crisis in the UK has exposed the extent to which the NHS has been weakened and shrunk by a decade of Tory ‘reforms’ that have fragmented the service, privatised much of it and impoverished the rest – to the enrichment of Tory backers and the detriment of the UK public and of the people who work in our healthcare system.

It’s time for all of the NHS to be brought back into a truly unified, fully publich whole that belongs exclusively to the people.

The scale of this crisis and the wellbeing of all of us demand nothing less – and no volunteer drives by the Tories to fill roles that they’ve cut can disguise it.

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22 comments

  1. Skwawkbox, did you mean “Irish citizens are already calling for this arrangement to be made permanent?

  2. Good enough for Ireland❓ Then it is good enough for the UK‼️ The privatisation by stealth of the NHS is too much out of mind in the general public.
    Also just as a test was found for Mr Charles SCG and the other parasites, test should have been found AGES ago for the workers of tangible vital value – Nurses, Doctors, Supermarket staff, paramedics, refuse collectors…Charles SCG and Mrs Parker-Bowles should have been ashamed to DEPRIVE an important test kit that was needed for any of the several key workers. But of course the parasitic scroungers have no shame. They prefer to give USELESS speeches about “DUTY” & “SERVICE”. They could not begin to understand the meaning of those words. Their hollow words are of no use. None. Zero. They should be ashamed but have no shame. Heartless pampered parasites.

    1. Repeal Section 75 Health and Social Care act to start with even Simon Stevens said that this was a step too far.
      Remember Virgin Care being awarded £2million in compensation for not being awarded contract.
      PFI failed the public-Mr Blair. Carillion failed.

    2. Instead of marvelling at Irish ingenuity and political brilliance, I’m remembering the scared tories nationalising the train operating companies on Monday and that Sinn Fein is giving the neoliberal Irish Government a run for its money and fear for its future.

      As well as repealing the 2012 HSC Act, the next Labour Government has to nationalise the profiteers in our NHS.

      (Would a Sir Keir Gov. ever do such a thing? I suspect not)

  3. This Govt fails on all fronts and constantly resists sensible and even urgent demands to change. They have yet to give way over prison releases citing the need to extract the pound of flesh. Most countries are doing it – even in the US, Turkey and Iran (85,000)! The Prison Service say they are ‘considering’ releasing some 50 pregnant prisoners so long – as they aren’t deemed dangerous. As for the two thirds of prisoners over 60 they’ll have to toughen it out, even those 80+ as harmless as many are. Prisoners are to be confined in their small cells (rarely in single occupation) for 23 out 24 hours a day until further notice. Social visits were stopped today and presumably those of lawyers. Patel should get realistic and stop pandering to right wing sentiment. At the very least they could release Over 75’s and the hundreds still held under the Indeterminate Sentence Regime despite it being declared unlawful years ago. Many are people held for years beyond the original sentence because they can’t prove they aren’t dangerous – often because the prison can’t provide the Courses they need to take to prove it. The Govt could more than half the prison population without putting anybody in danger but once again they show they care more about political face than practicalities. They’ll probably end up with mass unprepared releases once they find the Army can’t reasonably deal with prison unrest.

  4. Health services all around the world obviously need a (permanent) shake up. Who’d have thought that the NHS had been working on a supplies ‘Just in Time’ basis, normally used by car factories?

  5. CV19, apart from exposing the damage done by the Tories will also highlight the stupidity of Brexit, also a Tory inspired disaster but supported by some less than well informed Labour members.

      1. Labre. It’s not a cheap point to highlight the folly of Brexit and this of all times is a good time to do it. You were one of those fools who were taken in by Farage and his crowd, although you won’t admit it, you will come up with some hyperbolic nonsense to justify your stupidity.

      2. “Wazzok”… lol, haven’t heard that for years. Most appropriate.

        *like*

    1. Bloody shut up about Brexit,it serves no useful purpose and makes you look like a troll/idiot.

      1. John Thatcher, I might remind you that Brexit is not yet ‘done’ and the effects of all the lies which were told to convince the gullible to vote for it will become clear during the negotiations yet to take place. The consequences of that disastrous decision will be made even more evident by the other disaster which is now upon us. You and others may not like these uncomfortable facts being pointed out to you, those who make stupid decisions never do!

  6. WHo said the “Paddys” were thick , the only thickies are us and those who continue to support , enable and make apologies for Tories .
    Brilliant and well done to the Irish , they stayed in the EU , joined the Euro and have now done the most sensible thing a civilised society can do and that is to look after its vulnerable and sick citizens .
    Meanwhile in Boris bonkers Britannia ,,, well nuff said really .
    Still he’ll have the legacy of overseeing a record number of dead Brits on his watch and yet according to some Poll 60% of UK think the Govt has got it right in handling the COVID 19 crisis . Fxxk me what effing planet are they on , was it per chance a YouGov Poll ?

  7. There is a private clinic called the London Clinic, which has a 13 bed intensive care unit. Its patron is Camila, Duchess of Cornwall so maybe the PoW will have one of these beds, whilst the other 12 will be offered to the NHS and hoi polloi at cost price, whatever that is.

    Now look at the clinic’s website and then tell me that the patient in the bed in the first two pictures isn’t the same person as the health worker talking to the Duchess of Cornwall in the 4th picture!

    https://www.thelondonclinic.co.uk/patient-care-and-hospital-services/our-intensive-care-unit

    1. my goodness, labre! u r right! I’m embarrassed to admit, i’m surprised. To sink so low in such a many faceted way. The marriage wrecker Mrs Camilla Parker-Bowels presented as a dignitary to a staff member in a bed for promotional spin. U could put money on it that the owners are friends of Parker Bowles and Diana Spencer’s husband. Funny too, the grinning man behind Mrs P-B, looks like a younger version of her husband Major P-Bowles. Would not be surprised at that one. Its the way they roll. Major PB would ask Diana’s husband quite cheerily, “what r u and my wife doing this” …evening ir weekend? It was definitely not a ménage-a-troi more “a cinq” as Major PB may have been ménage ing the hard “working” Anne… in parallel or series the others named above. QUESTIONS – where then does Anne get the time or energy to “work so HARD”??? Ehm??? What sort of heartless creatures trample over the naive romantic fantasy of a teenager… and one of their own sort??? If they could be so callous towards one of their own, then what hope we??? To each his own, but is it not beyond understanding how the same parasites who deprive nurses and other useful people of Covid-19 tests and care, they then prance about from church service to church service, sit up front and declare themselves “Defender of Faiths” and “Head of the Church”??? Is it not strange??? It is such a funny funny world, thats not Ha Ha funny.

      I wonder if Mrs Parker Bowles over several gins and a little tonic, hooted with laughter later at the theatrics of the staff lady pretending to be a patient??? And how the clinic is raking in millions with the grinning fellow in the back who could be a relative of her husband. Or is it just the rampant inbreeding amongst that parasitic lot❓❓❓

      1. This bunch of imported interlopers have been ducking and diving since the reformation and are “Numero uno” at ducking and diving and leathel propoganda to remain in a position of power and privalage to which they have become accustomed to..The 21st century and we still have knights lords,baronesses,Princesseses,Dukes,and the whole privileged rotten system and pay good money to keep them.IT beggers belief to think that majority applaud this and even more disturbing is that we in the Labour party could elect one of “Them”

      2. Tory MP George Freeman was on TV tonight looking forward to Starmer’s imminent appointment as Leader, “it couldn’t happen quickly enough for me” he said. Starmer would be perhaps invited into Cobra meetings so a united nation could fight the virus. . Wow! Power! No mention of RLB.

      3. England’s problem has been it’s consistency of government sine the Norman invasion. Many Barons given chunks of land remain the aristocratic rulers who have peopled our politics over centuries. There has never been a serious disturbance of the order, neither invasion or occupation or even a sustained Revolution- although there was a good stab at it under Oliver. If WW1 had been classed as a defeat for Britain then just as in Turkey, Germany,, Russia and Austria Hungary the ruling class would have been displaced and the country could have avoided all the pain caused by hanging on to the Empire at great cost to all involved. Currently however it seems there is a Government intentionally or not that seems devoted to destruction on all fronts, a sort of political mass suicide perhaps?

  8. Anything coming out of the Irish plan to nationalise their Health service must be veiwed with caution,Cynical desperate attempt to cling to power unde the threat of a Sinn Fein government.For Leo Varadaker and his Neo liberal pals in the other conservative party the virus is a lifline not a disaster.Again the only ones who will shoulder the burden and recieve very little will be the working classes of Ireland.Now about the Public school run boys out of control and panic response to the virus in the UK.Strange how a hefty dose of Socialism is needed when disaster looms.But we should never be complacent when the Labour party are about to annoint a medieval Knight of the realm to represent the establishment and finally have one up on Ireland by having a third neo liberal Tory party….The undemocratic Labour party.

    1. Yes,the decision by FG/FF is an attempt to regain the initiative after the voters took it from them at the last election in Ireland.

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