If I told you that there is an organisation in Britain today that is by far the biggest killer of people in the UK, and that it was funded by the Government, you would think I was making it up. But you would be wrong.
It is directly funded by the UK Government and they use taxpayers money to promote and enhance this organisation that kills more people every year than all the UK murders in the last 10 years.
This organisation kills more people than official figures show for Smoking induced lung cancer.(38,000 in 2007)
This organisation kills more people than official figures show for Road Deaths.(3,201 in 2005 and falling)
This organisation kills more people than official figures show for alcohol related deaths.(8,758 in 2006)
Whilst all of the above are subject to draconian legislation, punitive punishments including fines and imprisonment and humiliating summary justice, the very same organisation that kills 40,000 people annually were responsible for lobbying government to introduce that legislation, yet they are feted by ministers, provided every year with yet more tax funds whilst those in charge are allowed to act with impunity.
What is this organisation? It is the very organisation that purports to have our welfare at heart, it is the organisation that tells us we are stupid and that only it knows best how we should live our lives in a healthy way, it is the one that purports to provide us with our health needs, and yet it kills 40,000 people a year. Yes, it is our very own NHS.
The NHS kills 40,000 people per year.
A very powerful statement on its own, yet more than that, one in 10 people admitted to hospital suffers some kind of “harm” because of the treatment they receive.
When any organisation kills and harms as many people as this, it is time to take stock, to make individual managers and the ministers that fund them totally responsible and accountable, or dispose of it.
We now need to decide whether this organisation is providing us with the value that it should, whether it really is capable of providing care and healing and not drowning in its own bureaucracy, or whether it is an out of control killer organisation, that itself needs killing off in the public interest.
The Libertarian Party would oversee the restructuring of the NHS so that it can deliver just that, health care and only health care.
We would remove the politics from the NHS, because politics has no part in health care, and the NHS has no business getting involved in politics, nor lobbying government for legislation.
We would remove the more than 1,000 Quango's aligned with the NHS that simply devour your taxes for none or little benefit.
We would remove all of the Health Authorities, both local and regional, that again do nothing more than push paper about and devour even more of your taxes.
We would cut the Department of Health down to a skeletal size, whose only business would be to oversee National epidemics and emergencies.
We would then see that Hospitals and GP's were responsible for their own affairs, on a local basis, free from government interference, running Hospitals, Clinics and Surguries as local businesses to the benefit of their patients, funded directly by a mixture of voluntary NI contributions, Health Insurance and local fund raising.
And finally, we would ensure that your health records belong to you, the individual. The state has no right to them, they are yours, to take to whichever healthcare provider you wish to use.
No more uploading to government databases, no more sharing with commercial organisations, no more selling your health records to research companies, no more sharing with the EU.
If you want your records to be used in that way, then as an individual you will be free to do so, but Government has no right to do so without recourse or permission.
We would do all of that in our first 5 years in office, and do it in such a way that you, the voter, would not lose any of your front line services. Those who oppose our plans will tell you that its impossible, but its not. They choose to ignore the political benefit.
You see, there is another way.
