Page 35 - TheWord#16

www.thewordmedia.org.uk POLITICS AND EVENTS February 2017. 35

By Peter Stefanovic

e live in one of the
wealthiest countries
in the world yet over
Wa million people are
forced to rely on food bank hand
outs to survive. 400,000 children
have to use food banks every year.
Parents are going without a meal,
sometimes for days at a time, so
their children have enough to eat
and GPs are prescribing nutritional
drinks to starving patients as malnu-
trition soars. Those with disability
have been trapped in their homes,
abandoned and forgotten and tens
of thousands of disabled people
have been hit by cruel benefit sanc-
tions. The elderly are forced to sell
their homes, to leave their loved
ones and a lifetime of memories,
and those who remain, heartbroken
by a country that has forgotten both
them and the sacrifices they made,
must choose between heat for their
homes or a meal for the table. Many
cannot do even that! Thousands
of sick have died after this Govern-
ment has declared them fit for work
and the homeless, cold and hungry,
are now dying on our streets.

Seventeen million people have
less then £100 in savings. Just
think about that for a minute, that’s
seventeen million people just a
heartbeat away from being thrown
onto the street with their families
and children. This week we learned SO MUCH FOR
19 million are on the edge of pover-
ty even though nearly all have a job
and its going to get worse. Research
by the Joseph Rowntree Founda-
tion has found that 30% of the
population,19 million people, are THERESA MAYS
now below the “minimum stand-
ard income” (MIS). The number
torian age and with it we’ve seen SHARED SOCIETY!
below MIS has risen by 4 million
since 2008/9. 11 million people
are at least 75% below MIS and at
high risk of poverty and 8 million
are just about managing to get by!
This Government is plunging the
people in this country into a level
of poverty not seen since the Vic-

the return of diseases long thought
eradicated like scarlet fever. The
number of children estimated to cally died after being turned away care according to recent research £10 billion extra funding for the singled out Mr Hunt as one of the
now be living in poverty is four mil- from three different hospitals and we are talking 30,000 excess NHS has been proved to be com- most passionate advocates for pa-
lion and what is the Governments because of a shortage of beds! In deaths in 2015 alone! It’s time for the pletely untrue! And let’s not forget tients and doctors. That’s sheer stu-
response to that? Let’s disown it by spite of an ageing population and Government to face the Truth of the he plans a further £22 billion of pidity in light of his record and says
abolishing the Child Poverty Unit! increasing costs of treatment, NHS deadly effects of its austerity cuts. cuts to local services by 2020! as much about her own judgement
funding, no matter what the Gov- as it does his! The simple fact of the
By stealth, erosion of Legal ernment says, is growing at its low- An analysis published by Age This is also the man who matter is that by reason of incom-
Aid and an increase in court fees, est rate since records began in 1955 UK suggests almost 1.2 million peo- scrapped bursaries for student petence or design the Torys cannot
in some cases to a staggering and 19 NHS hospitals face closure! ple aged 65 and over don’t receive nurses causing a huge drop in ap- be trusted with the NHS and public
£10,000, the Government has cre- Even so it was revealed this week the care and support they need plicants at a time when we have a spending cuts, tax burdens at a 30
ated a two tier system of Justice in that hospital trusts are to be ham- with essential daily activities such desperate shortage of nurses and year high and a rising national debt
the UK, one for the rich and one for mered by business rate rises whilst as eating, dressing and bathing. is still railroading through an un- rubbish any suggestion of Tory
the poor, the latter offering little or web giants like Amazon see costs This figure has rocketed by 17.9% safe and discriminatory contract economic competence!
no Justice at all. fall! The first overhaul of levies in in just a year and by almost 50% for 54,000 Junior doctors which
seven years is expected to clobber since 2010! will see them working longer hours Homelessness soaring, child
Nine out ten NHS trusts say NHS trusts and family doctors with at a time when a resent study has poverty soaring, malnutrition soar-
their hospitals have been at unsafe a multi million pound hike! The Prime Minister continues found many are already falling ing! For Theresa May to suggest
levels of overcrowding. A and Es to maintain she has every confi- asleep at the wheels of their cars that the Tory party is a party of
have an average waiting time of 14 The NHS is facing a crisis in mor- dence in her Health secretary, Jer- driving home! So why, we might social justice is an insult to every
hours and 60,000 people wait on al, funding and staffing and social emy Hunt which is surprising to ask ourselves, does May say she man, women and child in this
trollies for up to 12 hours just to get and mental health services are at say the least given he’s the man has every confidence in Mr Hunt? country. She is guilty of grotesque
a bed. Patients are dying on hos- the point of imminent collapse. An responsible for the longest A and Confidence to do what exactly? hypocrisy by pretending to care
pitals trollies and within the past unprecedented rise in mortality in E waiting times since 2004, fewer The only logical answer appears about “ordinary working people.”
week we’ve been told a mother England and Wales is likely to be beds and doctors then almost any- to be to break the NHS in order to SO MUCH FOR THERESA MAYS
needing emergency surgery tragi- linked to cuts to the NHS and Social where in the EU and his claims of privatise it. Theresa May has even ‘SHARED SOCIETY!’