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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