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“There’s a lot of media fear about privatisation”

“I think there’s a lot of media fear about privatisation. And if you talk about it, broadly, everyone thinks privatisation means that we’re going to go to the American system and have to start paying for health care. Whereas when I left school, I got a job as a domestic service porter in a hospital and I was a cleaner…And I did three hours of either cards or Dominoes each week in the hut after clocking on and clocking off. And soon after, that was privatised so a contract cleaning company came in that can be much more accountable, competitive. And I now work in the private sector in terms of medical care. And I think using resources…so it doesn’t mean the end user is going to be paying for it, which a lot of the media hype is creating that fear of privatisation. But it can… using the skills of the private sector, lead to making things more efficient. Which is what they’re doing with a lot of the private hospitals, they’re using those as a resource. So I think that, in some ways, you can waste a lot of things within the…the conventional setting.”