The problems that come with using UK tax payers’ money to fund private health care extend beyond our borders, according to a report from Oxfam, called Sick Development. It reports that development finance institutions owned by European governments and the World Bank Group are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on expensive for-profit hospitals in the Global South that block patients from getting care, or bankrupt them, with some even imprisoning patients who cannot afford their bills.

This article in The Lowdown newsletter delves into the report. It says:

“While politicians from both the major parties in England vie with each other to sound the most enthusiastic about using private hospitals to treat NHS-funded patients, campaigners have pointed to the problems both in terms of the diversion of funding and staff away from the NHS, and in the limited scope of private hospitals, lack of regulation and sometimes poor quality of care provided.

“But in low and low middle income countries, where public health provision is limited, the consequences of diverting government funds and money from development aid into investment in private for-profit hospitals which levy charges directly on to patients can be far worse.

“A report from Oxfam published this summer explains how the British government – through its own agency British International Investment (BII) and through British support for the World Bank’s privatisation wing the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – has been actively making things worse.”

Sick Development | Oxfam International(opens in a new tab)