Gypsy Creams
Your topical cartoon of the week
Men Only / July 1950
Some UK politicians have made a great fuss recently about foreign nationals visiting the country and benefiting from free healthcare provided by the NHS, but it may interest you to see that these were mainstream fears a mere 2 years after the NHS’ formation. This article from the Independent explains that foreign visitors are more likely to pay to use NHS services than to have them for free, but the total cost from foreign visitors using the NHS for free (e.g. acute, unplanned care) is far less than the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt would have voters believe.
Tags: social history, xenophobia
2 Comments
Tanya Jones on 25 February 2014 @ 11pm
I think it’s worth looking at the context of the magazine. Men Only at this stage was clearly aimed at middle & upper-class men, who wouldn’t necessarily have taken advantage of the NHS, even if they weren’t completely opposed to it. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that jokes were made about the possibility of Europeans coming over to use it, but as I didn’t know the cartoonist, it is educated guesswork, yes ;)
Matty on 25 February 2014 @ 7pm
Are you sure this cartoon *is* scaremongering? The NHS would have been two years old in 1950 and it could well have been that the cartoon was expressing national pride comparing the free, socialised medicine the UK enjoyed with the system across the channel. It’s worth remembering that the UK was a relatively proud and confident country at the time, the kind of mean-mindedness we’ve seen in more recent years comes out of insecurity and paranoia which isn’t the sign of a country at ease with itself.