17. The Morality of our National Health Service

Newly Beloved,*

Rights and obligations present us with a knotty problem. That is because my claim of a right often involves the invocation of an obligation in another. Likewise the claim by the other that you or I have an obligation to him/her inherently infers that he/she has a claim on you too. So claim and counter-claim are two sides of the same coin as humans try to control one another whilst disguising their self interest. I remember from my childhood Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby from Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies, surely an early exemplar of exemplary conduct. 

It seems to me that the knot can be cut in a theological context if you invoke one biblical text over another. Matthew 7:12 sets out the Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you”. On the other hand if Mark12:31 is put to use we would have read the second part of the Great Commandment. The first part tells us to love God as much as we are able, 

"And the second is like, namely this – Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

This demand skewers our self-interest and our self-love and turns it into an obligation to others. It is of course, not an obligation claimed by another human being, but by God, so it escapes the knotty problem of disguising self-interest behind a facade of virtuous conduct. 

As Paul's letters show, love, and the charitable actions that it promotes, are important. Love is missing from the Matthew text, so is the primary motive to benefit others missing also? Paul defines love: he says love does not seek its own interests and it does not keep lists of wrongs.(1 Corinthians 13 1-13) The view so often expressed that obligations are critically intertwined with rights is surely to ignore both the written verses of Mark 12:31, the testimony of Paul and the loving example of the life of Christ? 

There is pressure at the moment in the UK to privatise the National Health Service. Many people do not want to pay taxes which are used to support the NHS. They would rather have a private system of insurance and do not wish to contribute to the health care of others. So the question of rights and obligations is becoming an important issue

Christ healed the sick and there is no indication in the scriptures that he first interrogated them as to whether they had fulfilled their obligations to others, or to the Temple, nor did he ask them if they had led virtuous lives. He went on and healed them without judging them. Surely the invocation not to judge others (lest ye be judged) is at its most poignant here? My christian obligation is surely to do as much as I am able for others, not to point out that they are demanding rights, to which they may or may not be entitled, at my expense. 

A junior doctor, an anaesthetist, once pointed out to me that the The National Health Service sets an example of the Christian life. Like Christ, it refuses no one who is sick and does its best to benefit all that come to be treated. Compassionate people work out their lives night and day in the service of others in the NHS. They do not judge and do not refuse people because they don't have the money or because they have become obese, or are alcoholics, or are addicted to drugs, or their way of life has caused them to become type two diabetics.

 They recognise that these problems are normal parts of the human condition. They heal such people instead. These modern healers do not judge but instead actively exercise compassion.The NHS was formed after five years of a terrible war in which people had come to realise their dependence upon one another; a time when they had had to come to terms with the loss of people they loved.It is easy for us humans to be indifferent to one another and that is reflected in our politics. 

We must beware of losing the NHS, our countries greatest, compassionate institution, to political ideology or a love of the profits that might be made from a new health system or from the belief that the welfare of others in  our society is no concern of ours. 

A health company recently sued the NHS because it lost a tender for a business contract to provide services to the NHS claiming “serious flaws in the commissioning process”. Six clinical commissioning groups and NHS England paid the “care” company £1.57m. Surrey county council handed over another £440,000 and at least £243,000 more was diverted from front line NHS services to cover legal fees. Clearly only rights were important to that company, their right to claim rights that allowed them to sue. That is the sort of morbid selfishness which will destroy our society. As it was, over £2 million was diverted away from the care of the sick in the NHS healthcare to pay for their “rights” and to maintain profit levels.

Surely we can do better?

Peace and love to you all,

Paul.

*The original letter was not published by the church and has since been heavily revised.

Photo: Paul Munton.

A Yellow Azalia Radiating Hope.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
76. On The Anti-Christian Nature of the Small State Ideology. Nearly Beloved*, The first time I heard the cry for a “Small State” in the political context, it was uttered by those involved in a dispute over US grazing lands. The “s cofflaw” , Cliven Bundy, refused to pay the Federal Grazing Fees or recognise his obligations to the US government's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on whose lands his cattle grazed. In 2014 and 2016, the Bureau's response was to round up his cattle and remove them. That led to the congregation of armed anti-government activists, including the Proud Boys. These armed groups forced the BLM to back down because the Bureau was worried about the safety of its staff and of the public and felt unable to protect them. The US Government failed to support its own laws and regulation in the face of armed threat. This, and similar range land incidents, occurred prior to the assault on the US Capital by armed activists in an attempt to reverse the result of t...
Read more
Image
  An Introduction to T he Manifold Letters. These letters were produced as part of a brilliant project managed by the Rev. Robert and Sarah Van de Weyer. During the Covid-19 pandemic. Letters were written every day for two and a half years by both ordained and lay members of the congregation of St Clement's Church in Cambridge and distributed to others both in the congregation and people outwith St Clement's as Dearly Beloved letters. (DB letters). They dealt with manifold issues including psychological survival during the pandemic, personal stories and experiences of life, philosophy and theology, music, the beauty of creation, wildlife and secular and church politics, the mysteries of the Christian faith and the exigencies of the pursuit of a Christian life. Each letter was accompanied by a photograph all of which can be enlarged by clicking on them. The Rt Rev. Rowan Williams was a contributor for six months whilst he worshiped and officiated at the St Clement's during...
Read more
Image
24. On War. Dearly Beloved, It is difficult for us to cope with a war in Europe so close to home, especially because it is a war within Christendom between Christian communities. Apart from the civil war in Herzegovina, there has been peace in Europe for 77 years. My father was 28 years old and my mother 22 when war broke out in 1939. My father was already in the Royal Navy and my mother joined the Auxillary Territoral Service. “The War” in my family continued in talk and discussion long after the fighting had actually stopped. It was the background to my childhood and was made more prominent when my mother organised her family to fly us out to Malta in 1953 where my father's ship lay in Sliema Creek. We lodged close by whilst he finished an extra year of service obligated by the Korean War. One my earliest memories is of looking down from a prop driven Vickers Viscount aircraft at the ships on the Mediterranean sea shining in the sun far below. That was the same Mediterrane...
Read more