Thank LABOUR for the National Health Service

I have, from my earliest involvement in politics, been a passionate supporter of Britain's National Health Service. Oh it has its critics and some of the criticism is justified, but as an institution and an ideal it stands as one of the greatest testaments to the Labour Government of 1945-50 and to Aneurin Bevan in particular. It has become such a rock on which the British people depend that our 'socialized medicine' as the Americans call it, has become a precious national element which the Tories dare not destroy though there have been Tory administrations that would dearly like to have done. They have tried to weaken it by encouraging the development of more private health plans but nothing has shaken public determination to support its most treasured possession - with all its flaws.



But apart from my philosophical support for the NHS, I have over the last 12 years had practical reason for gratitude for its existence. I suffer from ulcerative colitis, a disease which cannot be cured, but can be kept largely in remission by the application of some expensive drugs which need to be taken every day of my life. I have often wondered, now that I am over 60,and not exactly being a millionaire, how I would have managed in the United States and what the cost of my health insurance would have been to provide the care I get now.

And some times that disease flares up, fortunately rarely, but this week has been just such a time. And then it can leave you feeling like death and in need of even more supplements than the expensive staple diet of drugs I take already. At a time when I was expecting friends from abroad and wondering how on earth I was going to cope, I was in my doctor's surgery at 8am being examined and prescribed a cocktail of drugs to calm the condition down. Within hours the medication had left me feeling 1000% better - it is a disease which brings you down remarkably low but with an application of, in particular, steroids, can magically improve your condition in a matter of hours.

But the drugs must cost a fortune and again I wondered how I would manage if I lived in a country which purely operated on a health insurance basis. For here I get the treatment I need, when I need it, and, being over 60, I get everything free of charge.

Now I know nothing is free and that other people in the form of taxation, are paying for my health. But in the many years when I was working, happy, carefree and free from illness, I was paying for the treatment of other people through taxation - and I never resented a penny of it. Because that's what a welfare state should provide. Never mind this right wing garbage about 'state control' and 'nannying'. It's about looking at the priorities of your nation and taking care of them. That's what good socialist government is about. That's what we had in 1945. Sometimes I could weep.