Nemesis Project: Corporate ownership of UK blood supply

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Corporate ownership of UK blood supply

What is that saying about putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank?.

Well it's becoming a reality. Soon the UK blood supply will be privatized. Market madness!

From the UK Independent;

The proposed privatisation of NHS Blood and Transplant service, or parts of it, will instinctively make people shudder and we are right to be concerned about how commercial motives will change the service.

From Unite

Staff representatives from the National Blood Service (NBS) have written to chief executive, Linda Hamlyn, and to NBS board members warning that the privatisation of the NBS could have serious effects on the fragile relationship between the service and its donors.

Around three million UK citizens give their blood every year. Unite says it is the ultimate "big society" service but the essence of the service would be fundamentally altered if a profit-motive was introduced to any part of the service.

Unite is demanding a full written report from the NBS board setting out what discussions have taken place with potential bidders, what decisions have been made and what time scales there might be regarding possible privatisation.

The union also wants MPs currently scrutinising the Health and Social Care bill to look seriously at ways to preserve the NBS so that profit-making companies are not handed parts of the service to operate, arguing that the only motive for the service ought to be the collection and distribution of blood for the common good.

On 16 February, the Health Service Journal learned that the Department of Health's commercial directorate held talks with private providers about running parts of the NHS Blood and Transplant service. Capita and DHL are understood to be interested in taking over parts of the service (see notes to editors).

Unite, Britain's biggest union which represents staff working for the NBS, resolutely opposes any privatisation of the service arguing that it goes against the very ethos of giving blood.

Unite's regional officer, Owen Granfield said: "On behalf of the staff working for the blood service who are very proud and dedicated, we have written to the chief executive of the NBS demanding to know just how far discussions with the private sector have progressed. Unite is not prepared to allow the private sector to profit from a voluntary service which was in existence even before the NHS was founded.

"People who give blood for free because they believe it is in the common good will be shocked to learn the Department of Health is considering allowing the private sector to profit from their blood. This is blood money and it is totally wrong.

"The very essence of the blood service is about people giving their blood for free to help and save lives. The blood service is always short of donors and privatisation could have serious effects on the fragile relationship between the service and voluntary donations."

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Reflections

“A corporation, essentially, is a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance.”
Wendell Berry

"Corporations are to democracy what a T-Rex is to your checkers game"
Rebecca Solnit

"Political systems merely reflect the society which gives rise to them. And we live in a society-and a world-where the power of corporations is much greater than that of "ordinary people". Corporate power can readily be seen in our homes, our workplaces, our public spaces and our national debates"
Josh Fear

"The deep irony is that it is the unfettered rise of corporate power that presents the biggest threat to free markets, and to the ability of free markets to promote individual freedom, equality before the law and equitable prosperity"
Stephanie Blankenburg and Dan Plesch

" Wealth privilege remains embedded in the ancient institution of the corporation. It is a privilege out of step with market ideals, which has led to wealth disparities that threaten our political ideals. We can never really have political democracy without economic democracy".
Marjorie Kelly The Divine Right of Capital

"Democracy is not an outgrowth of free markets. Democracy and capitalism are antagonistic entities... A functioning democracy must often defy the economic interests of elites on behalf of citizens.."
Chris Hedges

"The privatization of public services and functions manifests the steady evolution of corporate power into a political form, into an integral even dominant partner with the state"
Sheldon Wolin, Democracy Inc: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism

Limited liability is at the heart of this rise of corporate power: it constitutes a blanket exemption of a special-interest group from accountability for the actions of their companies. While the mantra of "no rights without responsibilities" is used to regulate the behaviour of poor people who benefit from social-security payments, "the unaccountable few" enjoy feudal privileges"
Stephanie Blankenburg and Dan Plesch

"The economic, political and cultural signs of corporate colonization are increasingly abundant and readily visible in the contours of daily life"
Carl Boggs, The End of Politics

"Adult working Americans are more likely to die young as a result of organized corporate crime than any other form of criminal activity"
Michael Woodiwiss, Gangster Capitalism

"Without doubt corporate power and wealth shape politics today more than ever- in corporation's very growing presence in the economy, their extensive lobbies and influence over legislative activity, their ownership and control of the mass media, their preponderant influence over election campaigns, their capacity to secure relief from regulatory controls, their massive public relations apparatus, their general subsidies to the two parties.."
Carl Boggs The End of Politics

Our Agenda

The Nemesis Project is a Western Australian based civil society project that aims to shed light on everyday examples of corporate power and bring corporations under civil society and citizen control. We aim to highlight the ways that people are affected on a daily basis by corporate power.

We comprise a network of people and groups concerned that corporations and business have become too powerful and dominant within our society. Corporations and business have extended their power and influence into many sectors and aspects of life that should be preserved for the public good.

Corporations now exercise control over most aspects of the economy and society and use their power and money to exert control over the democratic process. In many cases the power and wealth of corporations and business have outgrown the restraints of democracy.

Although there is considerable concern about these issues efforts to address the problems have been limited and when they exist, fragmented. Strategies are needed to explore and structurally challenge the power exercised by corporations and business. The Nemesis project aims to develop an agenda to address the underlying causes of problems generated by corporate power and domination.

This blog is the first step in developing a citizen's agenda to re balance the relationship between corporate power and the power of ordinary Australians.

The Nemesis Project is an initiative of the WA Social Justice Network.

Nemesis Project