The profit system is guilty
30,000 people infected and 3,000 dead. Those are the blunt statistics of the Infected Blood Scandal. Behind them the stories of thousands of ordinary people and their families, their lives devastated.
NHS patients were treated using blood bought from profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies, contaminated by HIV, Hepatitis B or C, largely in the 1970s and 80s. Tory and New Labour politicians, and NHS chiefs knew – and the products continued to be used.
The Post Office Horizon Scandal, Grenfell, Hillsborough, Orgreave, thousands left to die in care homes during Covid… In every example, ordinary working-class people suffer the criminal consequences of the profit-before-else system of capitalism, and the capitalist state that exists to defend it.
Rishi Sunak’s words on behalf of the capitalist establishment, “I am truly sorry”, don’t cut it.
Clearly feeling the hatred his own government faces, and anticipating huge public anger at this latest scandal, something like £10 billion has been found for the compensation scheme. Proof that money can be found when they are put under enough pressure.
Keir Starmer’s Labour will almost certainly come out on top in the general election. But Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting is arguing for more private profit involvement in the NHS, not less.
Anger at ‘the system’ is growing. Huge numbers have already drawn the conclusion that the system and all the parties that support it are rotten to the core.
Working-class people need a mass party of our own, one which fights for a fully funded NHS, free from profit-thirsty vultures, and run democratically by NHS workers, patients and our communities. We need a party which fights for the socialist transformation of society, taking the levers of power out of the hands of the capitalist bosses, nationalising big business, including the pharmaceutical industry and the banks, to begin to develop a planned economy which meets people’s needs.
If you’re fed up with the capitalist profit system which makes working-class people pay and the capitalist bosses ever richer, join the Socialist Party to fight back.
- Read more: ‘Infected blood scandal: the profit system is guilty’
