N(I)HS needs debate not soundbites

Some predictable nonsense during what much of the European media refer to as "The Cucumber Season"*:

"The transatlantic health care row has spilled over to Stormont, with the DUP challenging the Ulster Unionists on the anti-NHS(sic) comments of Tory MEP Dan Hannan.

DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson said: “The UUP, who are in a political marriage with the Tories at Europe, where Mr Hannan is a representative, have questions to answer."

Jeffrey needs a proofreader and probably also a lesson in basic geography: "political marriage with the Tories at Europe"?

He added: "Having opposed the establishment of the NHS more than 60 years ago, it is clear that some leading Tories have yet to accept the concept of free healthcare for everyone."

Perhaps, perhaps not. But it's most certainly not Conservative official policy to remove the "concept" and that’s what really counts in the end. However what is more worrying, once again, was the UUP’s response to what was a pretty idiotic attack, with John McCallister this time being chosen as the man to -*yawn*- "hit back" (always "hitting back", always "slamming"):

"The Ulster Unionist Party will take no lectures from the DUP on the NHS.

It was an Ulster Unionist government which first brought the NHS to Northern Ireland and ensured everyone here had access to health care from the cradle to the grave.

"It is an Ulster Unionist Health Minister, Michael McGimpsey, who fought against the attempts by the DUP to dramatically reduce Northern Ireland’s health budget in 2007/08."

One of the main selling points of the link-up with the Conservatives is surely that it is an attempt to move our politics and Northern irish Unionism beyond the parochial; instead here we have, yet again, a defence restricted within the claustrophobic four walls of Northern Ireland.
Try this alternative for size:

The three key principles of the NHS are

·that it meet the needs of everyone,
·that it be free at the point of delivery, and
·that it be based on clinical need, not ability to pay.

Those principles of the NHS (particularly the first one) are not being achieved by the balkanised NHS (in any of the 4 parts of the UK) at the moment- would Donaldson argue otherwise?
Does he believe it can’t be improved?

"Debate" is a word not given a great deal of prominence in the DUP Lexicon but debate is what is needed to deliver a health service that is worthy of that second description and there is nothing wrong or reactionary whatsoever in opening up the debate...which is what Hannan, whether by accident or design, has achieved in doing.




* E.g. "Everyone's down at the coast and we've no real news today, but look, this bloke has grown a cucumber which looks a bit like a giraffe, if you turn it upside down and squint your eyes".