"The NHS stripped down like a derelict house" | @guardianletters

Harry Leslie Smith’s account of his sister’s death in 1926 and his eulogy to the NHS moved numerous readers. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

I was born in 1937, and when I was a month outdated my father collapsed in Stratford High Street with pneumonia and pleurisy. When he was sufficiently recovered, he spent some weeks convalescing, for the duration of that time my mom had no income and the final of my parents’ funds went on paying out for an ambulance to deliver him house.

Later on I bear in mind my father when he was doing work as an orthopaedic technician, obtaining off his pushbike, and having heard about the new NHS, greeting my mother with the phrases “Thank goodness, we shall never have to worry about acquiring sick again” (What took place to the planet my generation developed?, G2, 5 June)

So my generation is more healthy and residing longer thanks to the care we have acquired all through our lives from a services run by dedicated clinicians and not run for profit by the cheapest provider. We have heard so significantly about the excessive “price” of the NHS, but this belies the truth that in England we devote less per capita on health than most other designed nations.

Of course individuals promulgating this myth usually have vested interests in the private firms, frequently foreign, that are gathering like vultures in the hope of the fat income they hope to make from our illnesses and wellness requirements.

The politicians behind these insidious programs are intent on dismantling a service which was, just before they interfered, the envy of the world. But then they are far also young to don’t forget daily life ahead of the NHS, and if items get actually grim they can afford to shell out for personal care.
Mabel Taylor
Knutsford, Cheshire

Illustration: Gary Kempston

• The answer to Harry Leslie Smith’s query is that Conservative MPs, this kind of as Oliver Letwin and John Redwood, got their hands on it. When operating for Rothschild bank’s international privatisation department, they laid strategies for the Wellness and Social Care Act which have been fleshed out in the Adam Smith Institute’s report, The Wellness of Nations, in 1988, the very same year Old Etonian Letwin published his book Privatising the Planet. In 2004, Letwin, then Tory shadow chancellor, invited businessmen to his West Dorset constituency, encouraging them to function together to win contracts for a new PFI local hospital. In accordance to one participant, Letwin told his audience that inside of 5 years of a Conservative victory “the NHS will not exist any more”.

Letwin, now minister of government policy, has overseen both health secretarys’ work given that the 2010 election. The bill widens the door, opened by New Labour, to NHS privatisation, closure of hospital services, marketing off hospital land to generate a services funded, not from general taxation but by personal payments to insurance companies. As Harry puts it: ” … the NHS stripped down like a derelict house …”

As Michael Portillo explained: “They [the Tories] did not believe they could win an election if they told you what they had been going to do [to the NHS]…”
David Murray
Wallington, Surrey

• My father was born in the workhouse infirmary in Colchester in 1900. My mother’s loved ones fled from the terrible poverty of Glasgow’s Gorbals to London in 1904. I was lucky to devote my early life in a nation in which situations enhanced. I am only 79, but I bear in mind when the Labour party defended the weak the sick and the bad. I pray that the two Eds, Miliband and Balls, study Harry’s touching story of his sister Marion’s life and death.
John Munson
Maidstone, Kent

• Dear Harry, thank you for reminding us of the terrible circumstances that the NHS replaced. Seldom have I been so moved by an article in the Guardian. The piece by Harry Leslie Smith, so superbly written, ought to be sent to every single MP and member of the House of Lords who voted for the Overall health and Social Care Act so that they can realise the enormity of what they have completed.
Ann Lynch
Skipton, North Yorkshire

• I am in my 70th 12 months, rather than the 91 many years of Harry, but I also despair at the dismantling of the welfare state that meant so significantly to operating-class men and women. How is it that the elderly can forget so very easily and vote for political events, which now includes the Labour party, who want to privatise all the services that operating-class people rely on?
Colin Lewis
Blackwood, Gwent

• 3 words stood out for me: “taxation positive aspects everybody”. Discuss.
Mike Pender
Cardiff

• Harry Leslie Smith’s eulogy to the NHS measures the ranges of improvement in society following the 2nd planet war and the opportunities that have been missed. The NHS did not generate an equal society, but it gave entry to healthcare irrespective of means to spend and manufactured strides in medicine which were available to everybody. It became a model to aspire to. The NHS as a public service has saved or ameliorated a great number of lives all through most of Harry’s daily life. The resolution to the rising price is raising contributions, not offering it off. If we had been a a lot more equal society, there would not be a difficulty.
Dr Graham Ullathorne
Chesterfield, Derbyshire

• My mom is 89 and misplaced the sight in a single eye as a kid due to the fact her dad and mom could not afford any remedy. I was born in 1945 and survived pneumonia and rheumatic fever as a young youngster simply because of the NHS. Harry Leslie Smith’s great lament created me weep.
Andrew McCulloch
Collingham, Nottinghamshire

• Best piece of creating I’ve seen in years. Mr Gove ought to make it compulsory studying in all colleges.
Rosemary Adams
Hunmanby, North Yorkshire

• How ironic that at a time we are commemorating the outbreak of the 1st globe war and the D-day landings of 1944, we are betraying the hopes and aspirations of the generations involved. They needed a greater future for their kids and grandchildren, one particular which removed the fear of illness, poverty and lack of possibility. We, their young children and grandchildren, need to be deeply ashamed of our wilful destruction of their legacy.
Carole Rowe
Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire

"The NHS stripped down like a derelict house" | @guardianletters