The first ever baby born on the NHS is marking its 75th birthday with a rallying cry calling for it to be saved.
Aneira Thomas was born at one minute past midnight on July 5, 1948 – the day Aneurin Bevan launched the NHS.
Her mother Edna, in labour for 18 hours, held on until midnight so she and her husband no longer had to pay a shilling and sixpence to the midwife.
Edna gave her little girl the female version of Bevan’s first name.
Aneira, also known by the shortened form Nye, said: “It makes me cry with emotion that it’s lasted this long. But to see it being dragged down the way it is is just horrendous.
“We need it maintained for our children and grandchildren. It’s still Britain’s jewel in the crown, envied throughout much of the world.
“The NHS was there when I took my first breath and please God, it will be there when I take my last.”
On Wednesday, Nye will celebrate the NHS and her joint-birthday at a special service at Westminster Abbey, attended by the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, NHS England boss Amanda Pritchard, political leaders and celebrities.
Nye was born in Amman Valley Hospital in the village of Glanamman, south Wales.
The original Amman Valley Maternity Hospital building she came into the world in now lies derelict after closing in 1984.
Youths regularly break into the former maternity wing for underage drinking and “ghost hunting” parties.
The site, she says, stands as a metaphor for what the Tories have done to the NHS after a decade-long funding squeeze.
Patients face record waits for treatment and overloaded GP surgeries mean that seeing the same ‘family doctor’ is almost a relic of a bygone era.
Nye, of Loughor, Swansea, is herself a retired nurse and her daughter is a paramedic.
She said: “I really feel that the Tories don’t care about the NHS the way we do because they can afford private healthcare. I fear it’s going back to the dark days.
“People are waiting years to be diagnosed and operated on. Aneurin Bevan would turn in his grave.
“We should be living longer and prospering - not suffering.”
Nye does not beat about the bush when asked about NHS strikes this year by staff whose real terms pay has fallen by up to a third under the Tories.
“Part of Nye Bevan’s plan was that health workers’ pay would keep pace with inflation,” she said.
“They have been exploited for far too long. Their mental health is suffering and they are leaving. There’s got to be an incentive to bring people back into the NHS.
“Not everyone can do that job and they are lifesavers. I’ve seen it for myself numerous times in my life.
“No health worker should have to come off a night shift and march the streets, begging for a decent pay rise.”
Labour Health Secretary Nye Bevan launched the NHS with the promise that “everybody, irrespective of means, age, sex or occupation shall have equal opportunity to benefit from the best and most up-to-date medical and allied services available.”
The change to the nation’s health was dramatic.
Nye’s mother Edna grew up in the mining villages of the Welsh valleys and her family before her were lucky to live to 50.
Edna never forgot the day she saw two men carrying her father – Aneira’s grandad – home with a broken leg.
They laid him on the long kitchen table so the doctor could operate. They had no anaesthetic to numb the pain so the children were asked to help hold him down..
Afterwards they had no money to pay the doctor so they had to sell the family piano.
Nye’s family story, echoing the story of the NHS, has been turned into a best selling book entitled ‘Hold on Edna’.
“The creation of the NHS was a turning point in history,” Nye said.
“After the Second World War many people came back broken and the NHS was like a comfort blanket being thrown over us. It would care for us all now, not only the privileged few.
“My mother lived to be 96 years old and she used to say ‘look what the NHS has done for me’. She lived to see her ten children grow up, 21 grandchildren and 55 great grandchildren. Nye Bevan left us all a legacy.”
The NHS has pioneered a host of world firsts in the last 75 years including the first mass vaccination programme, against polio and diphtheria in 1958.
The first full hip replacement was carried out in 1962, the first CT scan in 1972, the first IVF baby was born here in 1978 and the first combined liver, heart and lung transplant was carried out in 1987.
In 2010 British pensioner Kenneth Crocker became the world’s first patient to have heart surgery using a fully remote-controlled robotic arm.
“It’s very different to Aneurin Bevan’s day but to see how it’s progressed is mind blowing,” Nye said.
“It’s a team effort from the porters and the office workers up and everyone plays a part and it must be preserved for future generations.
“Healthier people are more productive. But it’s not all down to the NHS. I think a lot more education should be done in schools about how to look after ourselves.”
Since its foundation the NHS has seen average funding increases of around 4% a year in real terms - to keep pace with new technologies and an ageing population. Under the austerity policies of ex-PM David Cameron’s government this fell as low as 1%.
Tory critics say the NHS is a bottomless pit, swallowing up taxpayers money.
NHS supporters say it is the most efficient healthcare system in the world and point out that the UK pays a much smaller percentage of our GDP on it than most other wealthy nations.
Asked whether she thinks it will last another 75 years, Nye echoed a famous quote from her namesake and NHS founder: “As long as there are folks willing to fight for it.”
She added: “Health is our wealth. The plan for the NHS was that it would mean people lived longer and we would have to pay for that.”
Hold On Edna, published by Mirror Books RRP £8.99, is on sale from Amazon and all good bookshops now.
