蜜芽传媒

Around 5 years ago, a colleague from Pakistan visited Glasgow on a research scholarship. He came with his family for 10 months but in one month of him being here, his seven year old son had slipped and injured his leg quite badly. He visited me a few days later to tell me that his son was recovering well but more importantly for him, to relate his experience of the NHS. He wasn鈥檛 just full of praise for his son鈥檚 treatment but humbled by the fact that he had only been in the country a few weeks, but had been dealt with as if he were no different from anyone else with all the care that the hospital could provide. He left saying this is what divides our countries, the way your health service deals with everyone the same, rich or poor.

I knew that for him this one experience was an eye opener, he had witnessed something distinctly good about our health services in the UK. Yet this anecdote can probably be matched by many who haven鈥檛 been treated well, been ignored when they needed care or even lost a loved one because of hospital negligence. The NHS means different things to us all and in recent years has been at the centre of some terrible scandals where lack of funding wasn鈥檛 the issue. But as an institution, it鈥檚 always provoked much heat from politicians keen to show that the health service is their priority, a relationship described by some as our love affair with the NHS.

Yesterday鈥檚 four hour strike by various staff, the first in 32 years, was ostensibly about pay. But it seems to me that the fundamental question of what the NHS stands for today should open a much larger debate about the reality of our changing society, what we can continue to expect from the NHS and how it鈥檚 paid for. Most of us are grateful for the care we receive but hospitals are not run on public gratitude. Simon Steven, the chief executive of NHS England said yesterday that the NHS isn鈥檛 just a repair and care service, but a social movement. The concept of healthcare has changed over the years yet we remain reluctant to have robust discussions about the personal and financial cost of chronic illnesses, excessive drinking, ageing, loneliness and changing demographics, all of which impact the health service. Headlines about reform draw sporadic attention to various crises and we end up either sanctifying the NHS or complaining about its inefficiencies.

In Islam good health is the greatest blessing given by God to human beings; we are accountable to God and to each other for how we live our lives as healthy beings. But like all blessings we take our health for granted and don鈥檛 always appreciate that caring for ourselves and others is ultimately a moral as well as financial issue.

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