Gość: SCARED BRIT
IP: *.legnica.cvx.ppp.tpnet.pl
25.02.04, 00:01
International Health Service
NHS tours ... one of the buses that leave Poland daily
for London. Soon they’ll carry health tourists
By GEORGE PASCOE-WATSON
Deputy Political Editor
BRITAIN’S Health Service faces being overwhelmed by hordes of patients of
different nationalities when Eastern Bloc countries join the EU, experts
warned last night.
Many of the eight Eastern European states are in the grip of an HIV and
tuberculosis crisis and sufferers will swarm to the UK in the hope of getting
free treatment, it was forecast.
Health experts insisted that Home Secretary David Blunkett’s new legislation
designed to stop benefit scroungers will NOT prevent so-called health
tourists — many of them without a penny to their names.
Figures show around 1.5million people are infected with HIV in Eastern Europe
and Central Asia — compared to just 30,000 only six years ago.
Waiting ... these Roma gipsies living in Mielec, south east Poland, have one
dream — to get to the UK
The TB rate in EU newcomers Poland and Hungary is three times that of
Britain’s — and in Baltic states Latvia and Lithuania it is EIGHT times as
high.
Dr Peter Piot, head of the United Nations HIV/Aids agency UNAIDS, warned
governments to act before the new members join on May 1, saying: “There is no
time to waste.
“European ministers must urgently roll out effective HIV prevention and
treatment programmes.”
David Green, from the respected think-tank CIVITAS, warned of an explosion in
health tourism.
He said: “Hospitals take the view if you are ill you are ill — not many
questions are asked when a patient arrives. We already have a problem of
health tourism in this country.
“If you have an increase in the flow of people then there is every reason to
expect you can have yet more people turning up to hospitals.
Next time lucky ... east European stowaways found on a lorry. Soon they'll be
allowed into UK legally
“We have a system where people pay into the system through taxes and receive
a service as a result.
“The changes will mean people who have not paid into the system can get
access to an already overstretched service.”
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis added: “Our public services are seriously
overstretched — and there is no sign that the Government has made an
assessment of the impact of unmanaged migration.”
A string of leading experts yesterday warned of the dangers of leaving
Britain exposed to the HIV crisis in eastern Europe.
Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia
and Estonia will become EU members with Cyprus and Malta.
All their combined 73 million citizens will then be free to travel to the UK
and use the NHS.
Lars Kallings, who is the UN Secretary General Special Envoy for HIV/Aids in
Eastern Europe, said: “The enlarged EU could rapidly be faced with a more
vigorous phase of the epidemic unless political leaders transform their
verbal commitments into concrete action on the ground.”
Yesterday Mr Blunkett acted to stop immigrants flooding into Britain as
welfare spongers.
Incomers will be barred from claiming state handouts for two years and
immigrants will be required to register within a month of finding work.
Lawyers have already slammed the plans — which do not apply to Maltese and
Cypriot people — as unworkable and discriminatory.
But France, Germany and Italy have banned immigrants from working for at
least two years.
Welcome mat
is worn
DAVID Blunkett can try to stop “benefit tourists” coming to look for work —
and welfare payments if they fail.
But, predictably, lawyers were last night queueing up to drive a coach and
horses through his flimsy legislation — with the prospect of rich pickings in
legal aid.
The problem for the Home Secretary is simple. If he cannot stop illegal
immigrants, how is he to block those who will become our fellow EU citizens
on May 1?
How long will it take the European Court of Human Rights to rule the whole
new legal apparatus out of order?
And how do his new rules deal with thousands of TB and AIDS victims who will
understandably head West for free medical treatment?
In normal times, we might feel honour bound to give equal rights to our ten
new fellow EU states.
We would be glad to see skilled Poles and Czechs give British cowboys a run
for their money.
But these are not normal times. Britain’s traditional hospitality has been
badly abused.
Sympathy has been destroyed by the Government’s refusal to address the crisis
when it first became apparent.
Compassion has been soured by kneejerk charges of racism. And trust has
evaporated as ministers mislead us with massaged statistics.
Had we confronted this problem of enlargement before the Berlin Wall fell, we
could have handled it in a methodical and humane way.
That opportunity has been lost and overtaken by the sheer scale of movement
to the West by economic opportunists.
The humanitarian banner of the genuine asylum seeker has been stained by
criminal gangs who have traded on our pity to make more money out of slavery
than out of the drug trade.
Ministers have allowed Britain to become the favoured destination year after
year after year — by refusing to limit the generosity of our welfare
payments.
And where once a generousspirited nation was prepared to open its doors to a
tide of human misery — as it did with the Jews, Ugandan Asians and genuine
refugees from all over the world — they now feel they are being taken for a
ride.
The losers are countless genuine asylum seekers and would-be immigrants from
the Commonwealth family of nations.
At home, voters who see the face of Britain changing before their eyes will
take some persuading to swallow Mr Blunkett’s latest reassuring words.
The welcome mat has worn out — and New Labour must accept some of the blame
for that.