Students at Cambridge Union give vote of confidence to NHS
By Jonathan Marrow
In a debate over the crisis-laden health service, the University of Cambridge debating society took on issues of waiting lists, union strikes, transgender healthcare, and endorsed the NHS’ ability to meet people’s needs by a strong majority.
Inaugurating a new year and university term, students, journalists, and medical professionals last Thursday night (January 19) debated the motion “This House Believes the NHS Cannot Meet the Needs of the People.”
As trade union strikes and pandemic backlogs continue to assail the NHS, the Conservative government has come under unrelenting criticism for its management of the health service. With a vote of 72 in favor, 63 abstentions, and 182 in opposition, students at Cambridge responded to the topic by powerfully supporting the current system.
Journalist and economist Christopher Snowdown, the first proposition speaker, focused on the long-term crises in the NHS, statistical increases in waiting lists, ambulance response times, as well as the high cost of the NHS, remarking that “The NHS is not underfunded, if anything it’s overfunded” and suggested that the UK is “paying premium prices for a third world service.”
Snowdown argued that the NHS cannot rely on altruism but needs a profit motive for an effective health system, as found in social insurance programmes elsewhere in Europe. His remark that securing an NHS appointment was harder than buying tickets for Glastonbury received laughs and applause.
In opposition, Dr Martin Edobor, an NHS GP and Labour Party activist, cited his personal experience as a doctor and the pandemic-era vaccine innovations to endorse the NHS as a system built on compassion. He emphasised that though the NHS is imperfect, it is capable of change.
Edobor argued that the NHS’ funding by general taxation is fundamentally “fair and just” because “healthcare is not a system to be bought and sold but a human right.” He urged students to seize the ballot box to support the NHS and eschew other health models.
Student speakers in the audience brought in their personal medical experiences, both in the UK and abroad, with some castigating the Tories for failing to fund the system adequately and others focusing on larger forces of slow economic growth.
A number of university students, like the academics and journalists speaking, emphasised the larger philosophical importance of the NHS, with one remarking, “the NHS may not be as much of a national institution as Mr Bean, but it is part of our national character!”
Supporting the motion, Dr Lucy Dunn, a recently qualified doctor and social media editor for The Spectator, emphasised the uniqueness of the NHS, yet suggested that “loyal devotees of this country’s system” should accept that it isn’t working in its current form.
Emphasising the number of British adults who have resorted to private healthcare, the more than 7 million people on NHS waiting lists, and the worryingly high suicide rates among NHS medical employees, she maintained that fundamental reform is necessary.
Dunn argued that “it’s the people who say there’s no problem with the NHS who are paving the way to privatisation” and that what the UK needs is “a new health system that maintains the principles of the past for the needs of the future”.
The two main student speakers, Jonathan Liu of Pembroke College and Beatrice Coulter of Corpus Christi College, emphasised the ideological principles behind the NHS even as they critiqued its major flaws.
For the opposition, Liu, a medical student, argued the NHS was burdened by “various social ills of the country”, such as poor residents who cannot afford to heat homes, and that even a perfect ideal health system would suffer from similar problems.
Liu contended the lack of effective bureaucracy has emerged due to a traditional British belief in amateurism. Yet, despite its organisational flaws, the NHS “stands for universalism and equality,” and people are rightly proud of it.
Coulter, a transgender woman, focused their proposition speech on how the NHS address trans patients, especially with hormonal treatment and transitional care. Discussing the bureaucracy, intrusive interview process, long waiting lists, and emotional struggles behind the process, Coulter asked the audience to imagine if a sibling or close friend sought to transition and faulted the NHS for failing to meet the needs of transgender citizens.
Professor Neena Modi, physician and neonatal medicine professor at Imperial College London, closed the debate for the opposition by arguing that the NHS operates on a powerful set of founding principles and has, in many ways, improved since its establishment in the 1940s, especially by prioritising medical research and innovation.
The true value of the NHS, she argued, is freedom from fear: she criticised the thousands of different insurance choices available in countries like the Netherlands and argued instead for the universal system. Fundamentally, Modi said, “the problem with the NHS isn’t the NHS, it is its stewarding.”
Students responded with a rejection of the motion and an endorsement that the National Health Service can meet the needs of the people.
[Read more: Cambridge Union releases termcard with John Bercow, Katie Price and Neil Tennant among the speakers]
The next debate at the Cambridge Union will be “This House Believes the Press Has too Much Power and Not Enough Accountability” at 8pm this Thursday (January 26). For more information on Cambridge Union, visit cus.org.
