Jenkin's plan to victimise black NHS patients

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hťčWU_fGWÜĄ™GWU,wu OTONU, JCUTS STOP TOM) ON MARCH 12 Secretary of State Patrick Jenkin introduced the National Health Service (Charges for Overseas Visitors) Regulations, which he intended to enforce on October 1, 1981.

He has now had to postpone his plan until 1982 because the administrative problems are so huge.

The Jenkin Plan will impose charges on certain people for using the NHS, and the charges will be at private health scheme rates (up to £ 130 a day).

The money will be retained by the Health Authorities..

The Government's aim is to counter the so-called 'abuse' of the NHS when people receive free treatment in the UK for illnesses contracted abroad. Unfortunately, Mr Jenkin has failed to put any figure on these cases, but hospital administrators havesaid that they form a minute proportion of the total workload, with no perceptible effect on waiting lists (Guardian, May 19th).

The present Broadly there are five groups who can obtain free NHS treatment:

1. Ordinary residents of the UK.

2. Visitors staying less than one year, 3. Anyone employed here, 4. People from countries having reciprocal health artangements with the UK (the Common Market, New Lealand, Malta, Portugal, the Warsaw Pact), and 5. Anyone who contracts an illness here.

This means that people from the US, Australia, the Commonwealth, and the Third World have to pay privately for health treatment (except in emergencies and for treatment of communicable diseases - but even then, if they need rehabilitation after initial care they must 'go private.).

Who will Jenkin Under the new system everyone will have to prove that they are eligible for free treatment. otherwise they will have to pay either a private company or the NHS. To prove their eligibility patients will have to answer a list of questions about how long they have lived in the UK.

Anyone hable to be charged 'would then need to answer further questions about their length of stay cillors: Neil Lindsay. Paul Nolan, Jimmy Cook, John Mulvey, Jimmy Burnett and Madeleine Monies.

A Labour/trade union conference in Edinburgh on the 25th made the same call.

Unions and Labour Parties should start contacting Lothian now to get this conference convened.

* Contact: Lothian Action • Committee, Ruskin House, 15 Windsor St, Edinburgh. by GEORGE McLEAN [Education Officer, Manchester NHS branch ASTMS] here and might be asked to provide evidence which would be either a work permit, a passport, etc" (Annex C, HN(81)13).. This means more delay in the NIs, or more bureaucracy, or both.

Further, it is not difficult to realise that not everyone will be questioned, but rather those with foreign names, strange accents, and dark skins.

Other impacts of the proposals cause equal concern. At 'present anyone visıting this country for not less than one year will be treated free of charge; Mr Jenkin intends to increase this period to three years. This will split up families and SOUT relations between the UK and many developing countries.

op TO al zar LOI AOL TONYAl present anyone working here can be treated free of charge; Mr Jenkin intends to make workers pay for treatment either during the first six months of their employment or until they have made a minimum number of Social Security contributions. And not only workers but the families of workers will have to pay during this time.

Many migrant workers provide vital services in the ancillary and nursing field. COHSE have pointed out the iniquity of setting up a system under which many hundreds of NHS staff are themselves unable to obtain free NHS treatment.

Ethnic minority groups are concerned that mothers-to-be Will be put off seeking necessary case for fear of questioning of their status: this at a time when the DHSS is supposedly encouraging women (especially in the Asian community) to use antenatal facilities.

Mr Jenkin has no idea how he will collect bad debts. He has no idea when he will start the meter running for a patient who is rehabilitating after emergency treatment. He has no idea how much money he will save: one estimate is £5 million out of the NHS budget of £5 billion.

The Guardian reported that all the past research done OTS FIOR by the DHSS concluded that any system of charging would work out more expensive than the 'abuse' it was designed to curb. The COHSE document cites further detailed problems with the proposals.

Equally seriously the Jenkin Plan can be seen as a further step in the direction of private medicine. Apart from encouraging overseas students, settled ethnic minorganisation which the Regulations entail would be ready to be used to run a health service funded by private insurance.

Insurance Every extension of commercial medicine impinges in some way on the NHS and takes us further towards insurance-based schemes where inindividuals will get and only get what they can afford to pay for.

The Manchester NHS branch of ASTMS has begun to organise a serious and informed opposition to these Regulations. We have begun a number of projects with the Manchester Law Centre such as producing a pamphlet trying in the Jenkin Plan to the Yellowlees Report and the Nationality Bill, and producing a leatlet outlining the proposals.

Reprieve We hope to arrange seminars with hospital groups, ethnic organisations, and other interested bodies. We are thinking of running a dayschool in the autumn. We have contacted local Community Health Councils for their response and have been given much useful information by the Commission for Racial Equality.

Mr Jenkin is trying to pass his Regulations through Parliament as a Statutory Instrument by which he hopes to have as little argument as possible. We have a few months ' reprieve until 1982 to expose his plan and to organise opposition to it. It you can help in your area. please do so.

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