Gable Ender: Naysayers unhappy with ‘free’ healthcare for all

Montrose Infirmary, one of many Angus health facilities that has closed in recent years.

These days, social media has given many people a platform on which to voice their opinions, no matter how unorthodox their views are, and even on subjects where most people share an opinion there are others who take the opposite view.

Back in July 1948, the big story was the inception of the National Health Service, a universal programme of health care.

Angus was no different from anywhere else, with the idea of free treatment from the cradle to the grave being welcomed by most of the residents. Of course, the treatment was only notionally free at the point of delivery, paid for by means of national insurance contributions.

Previously, poorer families had avoided calling the doctor due to the costs of the fee and the prescription. Many doctors did treat poorer patients without charge and often the better-off families effectively subsidised the treatment of the poor.

Needless to say, there were naysayers who were unhappy with the scheme and, back then, the most popular vehicle for expressing opinions was the correspondence columns of national and local newspapers.

Some saw the new NHS as a socialist idea, and the correspondence columns of the local press carried at least one such letter listing the shortcomings of the ‘free’ health service.

“Socialist speakers have anyway been trying to gull the people that this service which is to cost £150,000,000 during the first year is synonymous with free, meaning that it is to be only partly paid for by weekly contributions. And surprising it is to find that there are a very considerable number of gullible folk taken in by the Socialist pretensions.

“The whole of it is to come out of electors’ pockets. This huge scheme may soon or late cause endless trouble economically. One can foresee costs rising stiffly and demands for increased wages to meet the heavy weekly contributions involved by master and men, and vision chaos and confusion worse than ever in the industrial life of Great Britain.”

Despite the writer’s views the NHS has undoubtedly played an important role in preserving and improving the health of the nation but local health provision now seems to be in danger with more and more services centralised.