[Music]
I
welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me George Galloway and me gatri
Britain's National Health Service
arguably the country's heart and soul is
in the deepest of Crisis led by the
country's most unpopular politician
Jeremy Hunt and there's a bit of
competition for that position locked in
confrontation with Hospital doctors
indeed the entire British Medical
Association
employing the union busting tactics of
the US in the last century which may be
appropriate because TTI if it is
concluded is likely to bring us Union
Busters right into the heart of the
Health Service Dr Bob Gill of the sa our
National Health Service campaign is
Britain's leading campaigner to do what
it says on their tin save the National
Health Service and I'm glad to say he
joins us now Dr Bob thanks for coming on
board the Sputnik thank you just uh
paint briefly if you will the state of
Crisis that the NHS is now in well
there's been several years of continuous
relative underfunding since 2010 instead
of getting the traditional 4% funding
increase the NHS has suffered a
0.8% increase per year so over time this
has had a significant effect on the
resources available to the NHS to the
staff and ultimately impacts on patient
care so the NHS is being squeezed dry of
resource and yet they said they had ring
fenced NHS funding how does that work
out well that's a complete deception
they also said no more top- down
reorganization in 2010 and in 2012 we
had the Health and Social Care Act the
biggest privatization act the NHS has
seen but it's part of a 20-year sequence
of steady uh red disorganization but
this has all been deliberate because
each new reform takes us further down
the privatization Road I I'm glad you
mentioned that longer period because it
seems to me many of the nhs's problems
now date back to the Blair Brown era or
even further or even that's ER even
further yeah kind of with me it goes
without saying that most things are
located most problems are located in the
Thatcher era but the difference is this
the Blair Brown era said that they had
solved the NHS problems and that they
had poured new money into it but that
was true only up to a point wasn't it
well a lot of the new money went into
setting up the infrastructure for the
whole scale wholes scale Handover of our
NHS to American corporations but you're
right the problem started much earlier
than that in
1988 by Oliver Lewin he wrote a document
called the the the Britain's greatest
big Britain's biggest Enterprise where
he set out the stages through which you
could go through without the public
noticing to get us to the US model and
unfortunately Tony Blair in his 13 years
at the helm followed the successive
steps but this was never told to the
public because they can't get away with
it if the public knew what was a foot
they couldn't get away with it so they
had to disguise it in socialist jargon
he gave us the line 7 days to save the
NHS before he got elected in 1997 in
opposition he talked about removing the
market infrastructure but actually when
he got into Power he reinforced this and
he also took several steps which were
major progressions in privatization for
example breaking up the hospital Network
into Foundation trusts which are like
separate business entities he saddled
hospitals with PFI liability private
financi initiative liabilities so the
the government borrowed 11 billion from
private Banks and financiers and we have
to pay pay back 80 billion now this is
an a deliberate Financial Millstone to
justify the sale and breakdown of the
NHS further along the line and to finish
things off in 2009 they brought in
something called the unsustainable
provider regime which is a fake
bankruptcy regime bankruptcy uh
framework to justify closing hospitals
and that was a regulation they used to
try to go for leum Hospital yeah I I
mean the very idea of a hospital being
bankrupt is so alen it might as well
have come from Mars uh I drove past the
Royal London Hospital just the other day
uh I used to say when I was the MP there
uh you would never find any member of
the royal family in the Royal London
Hospital but it looks very nice now the
PFI financed expansion and development
has worked out at1 million per bed and I
don't know what their finances are like
but I do know there are many other
hospitals in England which are
technically on the verge of or over the
verge of bankruptcy what does that
actually mean in this context well in
order to justify further closures and
attacks on the Health Service they had
to restructure it from a care delivering
service to a business and in order to
say well this business is failing you
saddle it with these deliberate debts
and then you use those debts to close
down what we publicly own to flog off
the hospitals we own flog off the land
shrink the NHS
bring it to the point of collapse and
then say well the only solution is yet
more of the privatization so it's quite
quite a clever Financial scam that's
been pulled off well clever if it uh if
it works in the end uh I just want to
run that number past you again MH Blair
and brown put 11 billion in MH but the
public must pay 80 billion back that's
right to the private financers of Our
National Health Service mhm that sounds
to me like a crime you know a crime that
you ought to actually be charged by the
police well
interestingly the labor parties still
are very reluctant to talk about PFI
there is some concern that some of these
were illegally financed there's
something called the ryy rules which
make clear that if you're going to go to
the private sector you need to make a
cost Effectiveness best value for money
demonstration but I don't think these
loans certainly they didn't meet those
def
but the problem is you cannot look at
these contracts because they hide behind
commercial confidentiality so we we as
campaigners want to open up these
contracts and and look at them and see
whether there is
criminality even if there isn't
criminality it's a crime what's been
done to what was Britain's crown jewels
we were the first in the world to
develop uh this kind of uh framework for
uh Healthcare and ttip if if it comes
about will be that'll be the death nail
W it that be the lid on the coffin well
it's a corporate power grab of all
public services and we have in charge of
the NHS a gentleman called called Simon
Stevens he needs to become a household
name he served the Blair government he
then went on to work for United Health
while he was at United Health United
Health's a private healthare provider
yes one of the biggest private insurers
for healthcare in America while he was
there he campaigned against against
Obamacare Obama's reforms he campaigned
against those then he went on to
campaign for ttip to include healthare
and now he's in charge of the NHS so
this is an extremely troubling
development but a lot of people who have
been encouraged by the election of
Jeremy Corbin are still waiting to hear
anything decent from the shadow health
Team I I went to a meeting with them a
month ago and was looking forward to
hearing something sensible from Heidi
Alexander but what we heard were
narratives that fit into the ongoing
privatization she expressed support for
Simon Stevens despite his treack record
and the next stages of the privatization
are to devolve the NHS budgets to merge
budgets with social care budgets which
have already been largely privatized and
then you will have contamination and
you'll also have the entry point for
patient charges and then co-payments so
the framework is all there The Narrative
from the labor party still supports
privatization and we are desperate to
wake up the leadership to what is going
on uh in the health
Team well of course uh Labor's Health
spokesperson isn't uh on the same page
as Jeremy Corbin she's one of the uh
people who well let's put it kindly uh
is unpersuaded of Jeremy Corbin's uh
tenure uh but you must get through to
Jeremy himself this that what you're
saying would be anathema to Jeremy
Corbin I can tell you that on 40 years
experience uh you must somehow let's
hope this program does it wake up the
labor leadership to the extent to which
we're sleepwalking into all of this let
me confess something M some of which
you've just said I have never heard
before and I'm a pretty switched on uh
guy in terms of politics I did not know
that this man was running the National
Health Service having worked in America
against Obamacare and for one of the
world's biggest
privatizers so your campaign's a pretty
urgently needed one where this is a uh
this is a 999 call certainly is Simon
Stevens in my view is one of the most
dangerous men in public office he's
taking us in completely the wrong
direction we know that the American
model is responsible for 45,00 ,000
preventable deaths a year that's not a
system I want to be around to see in
this country um unfortunately as I've
said the shadow health Team are still
supporting Simon Stevens I think we need
to highlight highlight the problems that
he is posing for the NHS and this is
where the junior doctor's dispute comes
in actually yes she wanted to ask about
that well the junior doctor situation is
completely contrived it was never a
negotiation there was always the threat
of imposition
there was never any new money the
doctors were not arguing for a pay rise
and there are no new staff but what he
wants to achieve is to break the
unsocial hours payment so that the
assets can be sweated so when the
private companies take over they can
abuse their junior doctors but as a
helpful side product to what they're
doing is to push out doctors to save on
redundancy and to replace them with a
down skilled Workforce a cheaper
Workforce a more comp Workforce who will
be more willing perhaps without the
ethical binds that doctors have to
overlook what will be far less quality
care we were turning medicine into
conveyor belt medicine the focus of the
private corporations will be for quick
easy cheap profitable activity so they
want to close down more AES they want to
close down more itu units and having a
Workforce crisis with they which they
have created will also help their
argument to shut down more and get your
medicine from a vendor machine get your
medicine from wherever but you won't
necessarily need to be medically
qualified to be issuing medical advice
and this is the toxic um undercurrent to
all these reforms and where do the
Consultants stand Visa the junior
doctors cuz they're also very often
accused of
getting nicely paid behind the behind
the scenes well again during the labor
years it was important to keep the
medical profession quiet and as as a GP
we had a very good outcome in 2004 with
our new contract but what we also gave
away was our control of general practice
so they split away out of ours care um
they also started to Hive off and
contract out for the first time in the
NHS GP services so you no longer had to
be a GP or doctor to run a general
practice surgery so anybody could do it
so you got ver aie a bookie could do it
you've got Richard Branson who's the
biggest GP in the country he's got 3
million p
on his books ah Dr Richard Branson Dr
richardon yes i' forgotten about him
this is a truly extraordinary story that
you are telling and if I may say so
extraordinarily well uh We've run out of
time for now but I think you and I need
to work together certainly to highlight
this Dr Bob Gil save our NHS campaign
thanks for joining us thank you on the
spck coming up after the break it's the
dwen of British foreign correspondents
Patrick curn just before he heads off to
the Middle East don't miss
it welcome back to Sputnik orbiting the
world with me George Galloway and the
dwen of British foreign correspondence
the independence Patrick curn in article
after article book after book has seen
more clearly than any other journalist
what's really going on in the mstom of
of the Middle East Patrick thanks for
joining us again I'm glad we caught you
before you head back out it's a very
grave moment it seems to me the
possibility of a fullscale Turkish
invasion of Syria bringing it up against
not just the Syrian Arab Army but its
allies principally Russia but Iran and
Hezbollah also that looks a bit like a
potential World War to me how does it
look to you it looks like a very serious
War uh I'm not sure it's going to be a
World War but it is a tremendous
escalation and of course this is would
primarily be directed against the
Kurds I mean the nightmare for turkey
has been that in
2011 they thought that the Arab Spring
soall would lead to Turkish influence
spreading across the Middle East talk of
the new Ottoman Empire or new ottomanism
and suddenly they have instead a
Kurdish uh quasi State uh spreading
across their Southern frontier so it's
primarily directed against the
Kurds uh but if this happens how will it
end I mean they aren't going to win a
decisive Victory or anything like that
so this even further complicates the
civil war in Syria and Iraq
that's where the deepest contradiction
lies isn't it the Kurdish fighters in
Syria have given their blood their lives
in large numbers to fight Isis and
Al-Qaeda against whom we are also
theoretically ranged yet our NATO Ally
turkey has invaded Syria not to crush
Isis but to crush the Kurdish fighters
who are fighting them talk us through
that maze yeah well it's a maze you know
without an
exit um
because this is concentrated finally in
this area north of
Aleppo um where the supply lines for the
Isis and non- Isis Syrian opposition run
this is also an area uh inhabited by the
Kurds uh in what they call rajava to the
East and another Kurdish Enclave arine
to the
West um so we're going to have an ethnic
War there if uh Turkey
intervenes um we're uh who are the
fighters there well it's not just Isis
but it's al-nusra as well that's the
al-Qaeda affiliate the al-Qaeda
affiliate there are said to be moderates
there but you know and there probably
are but they're not a they're minority
force and they often operate under
license from people like al-nusra and
similar
organizations so this makes the Syrian
Civil War that much
worse as false Flags go I thought the
one that
justified these events uh to be
extraordinarily juvenile there was an
atrocity against Turkish soldiers in
Ankara and another attack on another
military Convoy in the south of
turkey the president erdogan said and
I'm not making this up and I'm not
misquoting them our people have been
studying this all
night and we have concluded that it was
a Syrian C that carried out these
atrocities surely only a fool even a
fool perhaps could see through that well
there's so many attacks that there uh
you know
that the one doesn't know who carried
this out no certainly not by studying
all night you couldn't study it all
night you could study it all year you
wouldn't know you know a kurd carried
this out but who was that kurd working
for what kind of organization or was it
a kurd uh you know was it a turkman was
it a Shia or Sunni you can't tell just
from that uh and whoever that person
thought they were working for they might
have been working for somebody else
because in this case turkey is a member
of NATO the us-led military Alliance of
which Britain is also a member and
backing the Syrian government is Russia
and so you have an East West Cold War
style flash point and unless one
believes that turkey is acting without
the support and authority of NATO in its
interventions in Syria some believe that
that may be true I find it very hard to
believe where do you
stand I don't think they are honestly I
think that their primary primary concern
is the growth of a quazi Kurdish state
in Syria uh that whatever they say about
getting rid of Assad or anything else
they want to do in Syria I think this is
their primary target I think one of the
problems in this era that everybody
believes to a degree that nobody is
taking a decision without you know the
Kur Turks ringing up NATO or Washington
I don't think it quite works like that
um the uh I think they could easily
decide to do this on their own though I
don't think they wanted to I think what
we've seen over the last year is that
the Americans and other allies had seen
that they couldn't get turkey to seal
the border on the North against
Isis and uh other Syrian extreme Syrian
opposition alustra and so forth so they
thought right we'll try and seal it on
the south by supporting the Syrian Kurds
uh this put turkey in a very difficult
position because the Syrian then Kurds
then became one of the main opponents
and very effective opponents of
Isis um if the Syrian Kurds get are
weakened uh who benefits well I suppose
turkey benefits but certainly Isis and
al-nusra and the others benefit so uh I
don't think that they've that uh the
Americans and NATO are complicit in this
I think it's against their interests
well uh that that you may very well be
right and I greatly respect your wisdom
uh it's a challenge though for someone
of my historical or or world view
because what seems to be therefore
happening is that client states are no
long no longer behaving like clients
Saudi Arabia is acting of its own
valtion Israel to some extent
challenging the United States now your
theory uh turkey challenging its uh its
patrons and its uh its
Chiefs uh that too is therefore a matter
of some importance it is I think that
what you say goes to the heart of it I
think that you did have the you know the
of the Cold War
subsequently uh these states might have
been genuine clients they didn't take
decisions without bringing people up uh
I think that what they've been TR turkey
was trying to do hoping would happen was
they could that they could nudge the
Americans and others into intervention
in with grand forces in Syria that
hasn't happened so they've been looking
to do it themselves but when you look at
Turkish policy it's it's pretty episodic
you know there are sudden movements uh
which don't it doesn't seem very
connected up and this of course makes
the situation more dangerous not less
adan's policy in the beginning which
seemed extraordinarily successful I
greatly admired him in the beginning was
to have no problems with the neighbors
now he has problems with all the
neighbors and inside his own country all
is smoke and fire and shot and shell is
everywhere in the Kurdish cities but
also in ankor and
Istanbul yep I mean it's you know the
the Syrian Iraqi Civil War is spreading
its influence in neighboring states the
the political temperature is getting
hotter
everywhere um the and that includes
turkey uh
so um you know what happens now well
we'll see what Happ happens but it's uh
you know it's getting hotter and hotter
it's getting worse and worse these are
all the reverberations of the Bush Blair
attack on Iraq doesn't look so clever
now that
move no it was a disaster it started you
know it capsized the whole region in the
end and then they not only did it there
they then did exactly the same thing in
Libya and with exactly the same result
look at Libya now run by uh murderous
militias uh um people fleeing and across
the Mediterranean
capsizing uh the whole country in flames
and the coming struggle for power in
Afghanistan between the Taliban and
Isis they both can't lose but of course
yeah if you go from the Pakistan border
over to Northeast Nigeria I I think
there are nine Wars going on now if you
include South
Sudan um the uh these wars don't seem to
stop uh nobody seems to establish a new
government you know it was quite hopeful
that in Munich you had an agreement for
the first time in Syria backed by two
great Powers the US and Russia that uh
supplies would get into besieged towns
and cities in Syria and secondly that
move towards a ceasefire with the big
players tried to coordinate this this
was quite hopeful but now it seems that
this is about to be blown out of the
water we could go on all day I wish we
could Patrick curn may God preserve you
thank you very
much and now it's your turn to tell us
what you think through the portals of
social media what's rattling gri welcome
back by the way thank you happy to be
back question is what is the Panacea for
the Striking doctors and the NHS Andrew
Walker says well it's already gone the
working people need to take to the
streets but after Iraq war
demonstrations when the majority voice
was ignored what's the point and Ricardo
Picasso says the current government are
quick to tell us how much they love the
NHS but not so quick to show it they're
gambling with lives I think Dr Bob
Gill's interview is going to waken uh
quite a few people up maybe at the top
of the labor party too let's hope so
it's all of you've got time for this
week which alas means that's the end of
the show you can stay in touch with us
through Twitter at rtor Sputnik or on
Facebook Sputnik on Russia today it's
goodbye from me gri and from me George
Gallow it's been
[Music]
marvelous