Taken to the cleaners

HOMERTON University Hospital is infested with insects and vermin, say the Tories (Hackney Gazette, August 21).

The Tories, who are quite suddenly the people's friend, wormed this information out, as they imply, under the Freedom of Information Act.

They say 171 hospital trusts had named hospitals who were in this state. When contacted, 127 of these trusts responded.

I hope that at least some of them made rather more than the pathetic reply that came from Homerton.

Surely the Tories should now be shouting, very loudly indeed, "success, success, our policies are proved to be working?"

Who other than the Tories brought this situation about by privatising hospital cleaning services in the first place - or anything else in the NHS that they could lay their hands on?

Why so modest? After all, they were the ones who first put the opportunities to make money into the hands of private contractors, and now there will quite likely be a fresh rush of painfully ill patients - or those who can afford it anyway - to fill private hospitals because they are clean.

People's friend indeed!

Who make hospitals clean - aliens, robots from outer space, or ordinary people who clean what they are told to clean as many times as they are told to do so, just as NHS hospital cleaners used to do, although they covered far more ground for far less money?

And who, directly or indirectly, foots the bills for all this money going to private contractors and private hospitals, staffed incidentally by those trained by the NHS at public expense?

Joe Public does of course, while it is again Joe Public who runs the health risks of infested hospitals.

Health authorities have always rubber-stamped privatisations. Why? Ask them.

But be prepared for a very much stronger response than the one Homerton gave on this occasion, sitting ducks as we are.

Myrna Shaw,

Samuel Lewis Trust Estate

Amhurst Park, Stamford Hill.