The NHS
Created in 1948
For the ‘Welfare State’.
Supposedly available to all,
Regardless of wealth
With 3 core principles
To govern our health:
To meets the needs of everyone
Rich, poor, black or white;
Free at the point of use
Without charge, when the time is right;
And based on clinical need
Not the need to pay
But where have these principles gone
When we look at the world today?
If you meet the needs of everyone
Please explain why
Black women are 5 times more likely to die
In childbirth than white women in that position
With nowhere near 5 times the amount of
Pre-existing health conditions?
Why there’s less access to mental health services
For ethnic minorities; instead what they get is this:
Forcible treatment and higher rates of detention
Attempts to close this gap failed and that’s not to mention
There’s no ethnically representative data
Used to train artificial intelligence systems
Machines that can recognise a white person’s skin cancer
When it comes to a black person’s skin—it will miss them
You say free at the point of use
Then WHY are the public paying
For their doctors to be protected
When it’s the government that’s betraying
Run 5k a day, then pay 5 pound
The nation’s 99 year old sweetheart walking laps around
His garden
The NHS is not a charity
It shouldn’t rely on a donation
Clapping is not compensation
For years of continual underfunding
THAT’S why the NHS is crumbling
Because you only untighten your fists at 8pm on a Thursday evening
And then tighten them again
People have not fared well
Under your welfare state
Let’s build. Back. Better.
When the pressure of a pandemic eases
And the doctors that stepped up so bravely
return to their regular places
There will still be years of fallout as the backup of cases
That were put on hold flood in
So let’s make sure that we have the policies that protect our heroic MDs
And close the gap on health inequalities to make the world we want to see
Let’s resurrect our common life
But let’s not go back to what’s conventional
And let’s not lose all the kindness
That has become so intentional.