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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 181 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 181, December 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Leeds Hospital Fund, a non profit making organisation, was established more than 100 years ago to protect working people from financial hardship caused by illness or accident. It has 230,000 members. Last year it paid out benefits of more than £6 million in optical and dental grants alone.
Neil Greatorex joined the fund in perfect health in 1989, but discovered he was HIV positive three years later. He died in December 1993 of Aids-related pneumonia.
The Leeds Hospital Fund pays out a funeral grant of up to £1,000 to its members. In Neil’s case they refused, saying Aids was ‘self inflicted’.
The American life insurance company which underwrites the Hospital Fund’s policy said Aids cases were excluded from their policies to ‘avoid the possibility of getting a large number of people joining the scheme who suffer from Aids’. A total of 19 people with Aids live in Leeds.
A storm of protest broke out. Leeds Trades Council, MPs, councillors and health groups condemned the decision and urged the Leeds Hospital Fund to rethink its policy.
Protesters staged a sit down occupation of the Hospital Fund’s offices.
Leeds Unison began looking at alternative schemes. They approached Leeds city council which promotes the scheme through a check off system to ask it to change its policy.
The council’s health subcommittee considered the possibility of distributing information about a proposed boycott of the scheme to all its 32,000 council employees. A full council meeting also planned to discuss the matter.
The Lord Mayor of Leeds, councillor Christiana Myers, also president of the Leeds Hospital Fund and a member of Unison, took the unusual step of making a public statement on an issue of current controversy. She said the principle of everyone being treated equally had been breached and resigned her presidency of the fund.
Last week the Leeds Hospital Fund reversed its policy. From January 1995 funeral grants will be available to Aids sufferers.
It was Neil Greatorex’s dying wish to challenge the prejudice and ignorance surrounding the disease which claimed his life. The victory shows that discrimination and prejudice can be fought against successfully.
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John Appleyard |
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