CAROLYN LECKIE: Don't stand by and let NHS die.

Byline: CAROLYN LECKIE 

BEFORE becoming an MSP, I did the hardest work of my life as a midwife and UNISON branch secretary in the NHS.

Working in the NHS tests the mettle of the strongest. It functions despite decades of mismanagement and under-resourcing by the politicians.

It functions despite the ignorance of management who fixate solely on flow charts and balance sheets.

They never have to cut short a conversation with a frightened patient because there are another ten who haven't seen anyone yet. They never have to leave a distraught mother having difficulty breastfeeding to deal with an emergency because there's no one else available.

NHS staff are forced to cut care every working day. The stress this puts caring, professional people under is the direct cause of much of the absence and staff retention difficulties in the NHS.

Cuts to out-of-hours services, hospital closures and service centralisations are dressed up as "improvements". Glossy leaflets full of doublespeak are used to confuse, distort and mislead.

But the public are always on to it anyway. They organise fantastic campaigns and expose the truth. The public tell the unelected health boards in no uncertain terms that they disagree with their plans.

Yet, all too often, the health boards go ahead and implement their original plans anyway.

The Scottish Executive, who determine the policies that health boards enact, stand on the sidelines hoping none of the mud sticks to them.

But their brass-necked MSPs join in the public campaigns - huffing and puffing so they get their faces in the local papers - while neglecting to mention they voted for the policies that led to the cuts proposals in the first place!

They've got their fingers crossed that nobody will notice when they do what they're told come the next vote in Parliament. And that nobody will remember come the next election.

I've no sympathy for health boards. Instead of doing the Government's dirty work, they should be honest with us. If they were up for election for their well-paid jobs, maybe they would be.

But the real culprits are Government. While they've been piling pressure on staff, they've been piling up profits for their pals in the private sector and pharmaceutical companies.

THEY'VE pursued privatisation whilst completely failing to plan for the effects of change, like the introduction of the Working Time Directive - something they had notice of for years.

They've negotiated highly-paid contracts with doctors without putting in the money to pay for it.

The cost of keeping the consultants sweet will be borne by patients in cuts. And the rest of the NHS workforce - who will be expected to take up even more duties and responsibilities. But they won't be rewarded anywhere near as much as the doctors.

As the Government marches towards the end of an NHS free at the point of need, they've calculated that they need the medics on board.

But the rest don't matter. Unions estimate the pay deal for everybody else -Agenda for Change - will see one third of the workforce worse off.

HARDLY anyone will gain. Except, of course, in the number of hours they'll have to work for their reduced salary.

I'm sick with worry for the future of the NHS. Staff I talk to live in fear of a bad winter. Another slap in the face over pay might chase them out of the NHS altogether. Meltdown could follow.

That would suit old Tories and New Blair Tories alike. They're lurking like vampires, ready to produce private medical insurance forms from their capes.

We're being softened up. When you lose your local hospital, in the teeth of community opposition, the despondency and hopelessness left behind is exactly what the Government wants.

When they think we're soft enough, they'll make the NHS a relic of the ancient past. But only if we let them.

The NHS has been fought for and won. It's the difference between those who care and those who don't.

The NHS belongs to us, and we can't trust it to Labour. It will take every one of us to protect it and indeed make it better. Porters, cleaners and receptionists deserve more than crumbs from the consultants' table.

Communities are already uniting to protect the NHS. Success depends on recognising who to defend it from.

And that's the government, who are merely the PR machines for their sponsors in big business.