ANARCHY ” Kod LIKE LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER No17 MEDICINE INSIDE: ABORTION and RACISM. Meanwhile, Back in the Wards... & more..ANARCHY 17 CONTENTS EDITORIAL 1 AN APPLE A DAY WON'T KEEP THIS LOT AWAY 2 ABORTION AND RACISM 6 OBJECTION 2 MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE WARDS 14 LETTERS 4 REVIEWS 16 This horrifying, bloodcurdling expose was typed, cut up, stuck down and printed by the Anarchy Collective, and published by Anarchy Magazine, 29 Grosvenor Avenue, London N.S. Bound by the Black Bindery, Box A, Rising Free, 197 King's Cross Rd., London N. 1, HOW TO GET ANARCHY By subscription mailed to you at excitingly irregular intervals. U.K, £1,50 for 10 issues incl. p&p. Send cheque, postal order or money order. U.S.A. $3.75 for 10 Issues incl. p&p. (That is by sea~ mail - air mail is too expensive to talk about). OTHER COUNTRIES send sterling, either cheque, money order or sugar. HOW TO SPREAD ANARCHY By bundle U.K. 75p for 10 issues, sent to you post free on sale or return - you pay the return, U.S.A. $1.88 for 10 issues sent to you post free on sale or return - you pay the return. WRITE FOR ANARCHY We would like some articles from you, Possible forthcoming topics for Anarchy are Ireland, Class, Mental Health, and Anarchy and Organisation, but if there's something else you would like us to print go ahead and write it, We can't use articles that are too long or academic, and we don't usually print poetry. We would like some more feedback and a wider range of contributors. MEET ANARCHY Meetings are held on WEDNESDAY at about Spm. If you want to come along, and more importantly if you want to put in some work, write first to make sure we havn't all fled the country. We're at 29 Grosvenor Avenue, Islington, London N.5,EDITORIAL Medicine by the people for the people is a Joke in this country at the moment. But look~ ing at Chinawe see that people can control and understand their treatment, and by doing so, health care itself becomes more positive and the results more sucessful for the individual. (see Reviews) The state of medicine in any society illustrates in many ways the value of life, and the emphasis placed on the quality of life, in that society. Advances in medicine which demonstrate this are the great leap forward In treatment of bums and putting back severed limbs, done in China, which affects the lives of working people; whereas here all the money and effort goes on prestige aspects of medicine like brain - surgery, open-heart surgery and organ transplants, The emphasis placed here means that other areas such as casualty work, Industrial diseases, hernias, hysterectomies, chronic lung disease etc. are severely deprived. Working people are patched up and pla stered over to keep them going, whereas the wealthy have every care and attention Javished on them In private wards. A private watlent is treated as a human being, the aim in .eatment being to prevent and to cure, and to secure a decent quality of life afterwards, Medicine cannot be seen in isolation from society, TB, for example, will not be cured without solving problems of bad housing, Many casualities result from unsafe conditions at work - especially in bullding and agriculture. Most industrial workers are at risk from fumes, poor ven- tilation and lighting, chemicals ete, etc. Road accidents could be lessened by more public and less private'tkanspgrt: Better medicine alone will not solve these prob- ems; only a total:trangformatioh.of soclety will. petted Hospitals can be likened to facrériés ‘The workers; porters, nurses, cleaners, lab technictans, radiographers etc. and the foremen; housemen and jntor doctors, going gradually up the scale to management: the consultants and hospital administrators. An integral part of this set-up, as with any industry, is the product; the patient, a very necessary part of the hospital, but @ passive one. With the centralisation of hospitals into huge complexes where everyone is @ stranger, the patient becomes even less Important, This is clearly seen in the in duction of births to fit th with working hours; and the ever-growing waiting lists for operations that are important for the patient, (bit not immediately necessary in life or death terms) but boring for doctors when compared with the exclusive and exciting world of super-surgery. A consultant's £10,000 a year depends upon us, as patients, so why do we take tt lying down? We can never get good medicine from the middle and upper classes - but it is to them that we go, and our lives that we put in thelr hands. It’s no use, either, think ing that anarchists can become doctors and remain anarchists - doctors are trained to be arrogant and superior; the whole of present medical fraining is baséd on the patient as a ‘subject’ - a body to perform on. As with the rest of’Society, medicine will have to be almost totally destroyed and rebuilt from scratch, THE ANARCHY COLLECTIVE: