Reflections

Harry Leslie Lee According to his profile in the Guardian newspaper website , "Harry Leslie Smith is a survivor of the Great Depression, a second world war RAF veteran and an activist for the poor and for the preservation of social democracy. He has authored numerous books about Britain during the great depression, the second world war, and postwar austerity" his latest book is Harry's Last Stand. In an extract which was published in the Guardian a few days ago, he describes how major illness used to end in poor families in the pre NHS days. It sounded eerily similar to many stories that I have heard during my wanderings in rural India. I think it is a powerful argument in favour of setting up a good quality public health services system and against the present system in India where all governments are insidiously at work to undermine the government ( and basically free) health system and passing the buck to the private ( and insanely expensive, at least in the Indian ...