WHO NAMED the little girl whose case was dramatised in Labour's Party Election Broadcast? The Tory press.
Who lied to the newspapers and radio, claiming her 11-month wait for ear surgery had nothing to do with cuts - despite having written to her father admitting that this was the case? Tory consultant Alan Alouin.
Who claimed the story was false. and compared Nol Kinnock to a Nazi propagandist for upholding it, despite every aspect of the case being shown to be true? Tory Health Secretary William Waldegrave.
Why were the Tories so desperate to up the stakes on this issue, to drag and falsely to smear Labour as the source of her name? Because the case is not unique, and their record on NHS waiting lists will not stand public scrutiny.
It was for the same reason that in 1987 the Tery press decided to hound Edna Healey, wife of Labour poitician Denis, for having had a private hip operation in order to avoid a 3-year wait for NHS treatment. Then, as now. the Tories tried to make the issue one of Labour hypocrisy rather than NHS Since the row erupted the Labour Party and the Daily Mitor have been inundated with simiar examoles of lengthy waits for treatment. Yet the Tores have been trumpeting their "success' in reducing the numbers of patients waiting over two years.
There is no real contradiction here. The Tories have cynically singled out this one, relatively small, sector of the waiting list for special attention. They • Many of the numbers lopped off the list are not the result of operations being carried out, but the outcome of a clerical exercise known as Valida. tion, through which thousands of names have been crossed from waz. ing sis around she cocaly • Others, like some 200 women waiting for varicose vein operations in the opting-out Waltham Forest health authority, have received letters saying unar to save wem wang forger, wie list has been closed and the treatment • Eisowhere judicious use of one-off special funding to finance certain operations has succeeded in whitling down the 2-year queue. This is no surprise. Socialists have always said that the waiting lists could be eliminated if adoquate funding were avaiable: there is no waiting list in most western European countries, yet in England alone 926,000 people are currently in the queue.
The surprising thing is that even with all the fiodles and tricks, the overall waiting list is still going rapidly upGovernment figures show numbers wating up to one year - the biggest category of patients- rose in February in ten out of 14 English ro.