A friend texted me with a very special message. She was so pleased to have taken part in the nation wide protest in support of the NHS on Valentines Day. Mostly because later that evening, her mum was taken ill and ended up in hospital.
The NHS saved her mum's life.
And that is how it is, most do not realise how important and incredible it is until we are faced with a crisis. For us, it was last year, when our daughter was diagnosed with Turner's Syndrome. We were in and out of hospital, and they were fantastic at the Children's Centre at Sunderland Royal Hospital.
But 1000's of nurses jobs have been lost over the last few years. The creeping privatisation of the NHS, hastened by the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, has meant that £13 billion of our tax payers money has already been syphoned off into the hands of the private sector.
The Tories are set to be the big winners - with 24 ministers who voted for the act in 2012 being financially involved with 15 private health care companies who have benefited from the changes.
Slowly and by stealth, the NHS is being degraded and sold off in little chunks. Staff moral is low, and 76% of GPs are saying that health care rationing is already happening.
It is our NHS, and we are not prepared to lose it without a fight. In Sunderland, in Durham, in hundreds of towns and cities up and down the country we shouted 'Hands off our NHS!'
It belongs to the people, not to the privateers. Let us not be the first generation since 1948 to lose such a life giving institution. The NHS is not safe in this governments hands.
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