Crowded Out

Some thrusting managerial types at NHS England, who evidently share the Conservative Party's belief that healthcare should be for the financially deserving, have announced that they no longer intend issuing prescriptions for drugs which are available over the counter. Those who require such drugs will have to pay for them or else go without, thus providing yet another incentive for cancer patients on low incomes to take up their beds and work. Naturally, Britain's leading liberal newspaper has buried the story at the end of a piece about the withdrawal of homeopathic remedies from the NHS budget, which is expected to save a massive hundred thousand a year, or about one-fifth to one-tenth the cost of a white male at the BBC. Britain's leading liberal newspaper does not find it worthy of mention that the snake-oil subsidy is slightly less than the twenty-five million a year which the Health Service spends on hospital chaplains; nor does it quote any thoughts on how matters might be improved should the money now sprayed away on fertility treatments be spent on helping people who are, perish the thought, physically or mentally unwell.