PUZZLED by the apparent absence of pay beds in NHS hospitals in South Glamorgan where I work, I began to ask patients how they hospital, ana a pattern emerged. £12 backhander to the consultant will get you over the longest waiting list. A of NHS growing numer needing to go into hospital are being advised by their GPsto see Mr Xor Dr Z privately. One private consultation and your case becomes urgent!
Admission to a hospital bed is decided entirely by the "clinical judgement'. This is nothing more than a lucrative fiddle for some consultants taking advantage of the shortage of NHS beds and exploiting people who may be crippled and in pain.
İ am trying to get facts to back up what I've noticed. readers kmow about this practice, and what we can do to expose it?
NHS worker [Cardiff)
Studs Lonigan WHATEVER the outcome of the at Television, it should at least have one beneficial effect. The screening programmes socialist journals an opportunity which, to the best of my knowledge, all of them have so far missed draw their readers' attention to the dramatisation of James T. Farrell's classic trilogy, Studs Lonigan.
If it leads some of them to read DAVID Yaffe's letter got into Communist A political member patients serves the interests of the consultant's it disagrees administratively the working class', of course.
Comrade
desperate, no time What do other not the first excluded Independent delay will give to (16 August) attempts to justify the Revolutionary Group's exclusion in the tendencies their meetings, and their physical attack on the Revolutionary Communist Tendency, by redefining democracy The RCG argues that its concept of democracy is not a bourgeois one, but one 'which working class'. Since the RCG can define these guy." interests as it sees fit, any views which with can be dealt with • in the interests of Yaffe's accusation about the RCT has no substance. At threaten RCG meetings. The RCT is RCT disrupt organisation to RCG meetings Manchester and London. Presumably all these exclusions were done in the The proletarian democracy is the RCG's tactic of labelling political opponents RCG told its supporters that the Spartacist League was financed by the CIA. In March this year, the RCG warned its supporters not to talk to members of the RCT because were agents of the state. Earlier this month, a South African comrade who criticised the RCG after a meeting of the Newham Defence Committee was which means by which the RCG seeks to I HAVE to tell Alexander Musgrave (16 August) that I waged a bitter fight York branch of Communist League against admitting membership on the sole ground of his appearance and dress. They asked: 'What have you against I said: "He wears a corduroy suit up and down Greenwich Village, with a trick moustache and long hair. There is something wrong with this I wasn't making a joke either. I said people of this type are not going to be suitable for • approaching the ordinary American worker. They are going to mark our organisation as somethine freakish, abnormal, do i some normal te bithe American worker. I was dead right in general, and in this mentioned case in Darticulat after making all kinds of trouble in the organisation, eventually became an Ochlerite.
Ghost of James P.
London NIl THE LENGTH of printed will usually be kept down to 400 words in order to encourage as wide & range contributions as possible.
may be cut at Editor's discretion.
21-23 September 1979 THE talks which open in London next month will see a concerted bid by the British Horeign Oftice to try isolate the Patriotic Front. Thatcher's partial retreat at Lusaka, forcea or her by the need to protect interests, in no way indicates that the I Was al c preparea to sanctions till the white settler regime is dismantled.
The Tories will introduce a few cosmetic changes in the constitution to Lusaka, isolate the Patriotic Front and try and carry the front line states with them. The front line states also retreated at Lusaka by agreeing to put the Patriotic Front on a par with the puppet parties Any notion that Lusaka resolved anything would be extremely dangerCannon Ous • Lusaka Communique of the white wower structure or now lie ceasculle will be supervised. In reality there are grounds for believing that the Prepare mahayderer to i of dominated by the Patriotic Front. AlI the attending the London talks. But the and maintain ment.
liberation now aim to following period:
acknowledge Mon death 9.30am. who signed the DAYTHREE 10:00-1.00pm TWO TRADITIONS OF MARXISM IN BRITAIN John Ross Workshops Workers Plans and Workers Control, Women in Eastern Europe.
Speakers include: Hilary Wainwright, Dave Bailey 2.00-5.00pm THE REVOLUTIONARY LEFT IN EUROPE Chris Harman [SWP], Tariq Ali [IMG] Creche facilities Refreshments available El a session.
£5.50 six sessions excluding the rally £l for rally.
has right to supervise elections, negotiations or a ceasefire. The Front argues that elections can only be supervised by 'persons or groups of persons who possess objectivity and impartiality which is beyond question'. This would tend to exclude the present British governWe urge all supporters of th struggle to support the actions over the next September: Picket of Downing Street to protest against sentences brothers found guilty of possessing firearms.
at kothmat Corner (corner of St James and Pall 6.30pm and then marching to Central Hall, Westminster for rally at 7.30pm (Speakers to include Patriotic Front Sat 15 September:
Zimbabwe, 10.30am, NUR, Euston
----- pull-quotes -----
Consultants' backhander
State agents mushroom?
Are appearances revealing?
£5 for all the sessions except the rally [£6 including the rally] if paid before 1 September. VENUE: Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, Make Cheques and Postal Orders out to 'Socialist Challenge'