NHS campaigners from the 38 Degrees campaigning website receive support from Parliamentary election candidates, including Nancy Platts, Labour’s candidate for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven, last Saturday, April 25.
THE campaigners from across the city have been collecting thousands of signatures for a petition demanding “better investment” in the NHS and for it to be kept out of the hands of “profit making” companies.
Nancy Platts, Labour’s Parliamentary candidate for Kemptown and Peacehaven spoke alongside other election candidates at a rally following the day of action and congratulated campaigners on raising a vital issue during the election.
She said: “It’s heartening to see so many 38 Degrees campaigners out defending the NHS in Brighton Kemptown & Peacehaven.
“Our NHS is precious. I pledge to do everything I can to protect it.
“If elected I will campaign to stop privatisation, making sure the NHS has the funding it needs to provide high quality healthcare to everyone and protecting it from US health corporations by opposing the planned trade deal between the EU and the USA (TTIP).
“Given we’re seeing A&E waits topping four hours already in Brighton, the election and a change of government committed to the NHS cannot come soon enough.”
The petition claimed that over the past few years, NHS funding has been squeezed so much that services are suffering and most hospitals are warning that their budget for next year has reached the point where patient care is at risk.
Campaigners expressed concerns that TTIP, the planned trade deal between the EU and the USA, could threaten the NHS further. If TTIP opens the NHS to American private healthcare companies, there could be more privatisation and a slide into more US-style healthcare.
Campaigners want the NHS excluded from TTIP.
Nancy continued: “The Labour manifesto has pledged to repeal David Cameron’s Health and Social Care Act, ensure that the Secretary of State for Health has a duty to guarantee a national health service free at the point of use, remove enforced competition and ensure private patients aren’t put before NHS patients and tackle conflicts of interest.”
All Brighton Parliamentary candidates at the coming general election had been invited to the event to speak and receive the petition.
Labour, Green and Lib Dem candidates attended the event, but no representatives from the Conservative or UKIP were present and were ‘empty chaired’.
To view Nancy’s speech at the 38 Degrees rally, click here:
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