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A Corporate Good Samaritan?

One of the basic principles, I believe, of the NHS is that everyone should receive all necessary treatment free at the point of need. I'm deeply proud of that - a national acceptance of the lesson of Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan. I've visited affluent countries where that is not the case, where long-term chronic disease, for example, can lead to the impoverishment of whole families and some heart-rending choices.

A recent news item revealed that a number of UK hospital trusts were owed large sums by patients who were not entitled to free treatment. The trusts had written off many of these debts because they couldn't justify spending money trying to retrieve costs from people who are unable to pay. They would be unlikely to recover the cost of heart surgery from an illegal Ukrainian who has picked strawberries for a month in Kent. Nor would, I hope, any hospital turn away someone who had had an accident or was about to have a baby, because they had no money or entitlement.

In the late 1950s, I worked in St. Thomas' Hospital, London. It served a large part of south London with many new immigrants, particularly from areas of the world where people were entitled to British citizenship of one kind or another. I interviewed a man who spoke Greek and very little English. I asked for advice on his status. 'If they speak Greek or Turkish, just put them down as Cypriot and admit them', was the reply. I suspect we extended free treatment to many people that way! We lived in Toronto in the mid 1960s, where my husband worked for the social services. He vividly remembers going with an ambulance to an emergency call, where an unconscious man was shaken violently and shouted at, his squalid room searched for insurance papers, before any attempt was made to check him out and take him to hospital.

Now, these are merely personal impressions, not backed up with research. But perhaps someone else needs to write a paper for the Minister. Of course, there are legitimate concerns about those who come to the UK specifically for treatment, who could pay and don't. More crucial, however, are the questions about all kinds of cost-cutting economies that could leave someone lying dying on the Jericho road.


Margaret Killingray