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	Imagine a future where people throughout the world act together to reject corruption by Transparency International   Corruption – the abuse of entrusted power for private gain – is wrong. It destroys the basic rights of hundreds of millions of people across the world, it has devastating consequences on the services provided by public institutions and it undermines the prospect for a better life for future generations.   Together we can work towards ending corruption, overcoming widespread injustice and impunity. All forms of corruption must be ended to secure the basic rights of all people and ensure a world where everyone can live in dignity.   People are dying because money meant for health care is stolen. The proceeds of large-scale corruption laundered in luxury property. Women and girls subjected to sexual demands in return for passing exams. Democracy undermined by money in politics. Factory workers losing their lives when unsafe buildings certified by unscrupulous inspectors collapse. Hard earned tax payer money misappropriated.   Directly or indirectly, all of us are affected by corruption. But it does not have to be this way. Imagine a future where people throughout the world act together to reject corruption. Together we can and will bring about real change. This is what you can do in your daily life, in your place of work, in schools, hospitals and places of worship to be part of this change.   Do not pay bribes. Do not seek bribes. Work with others to campaign against corruption. Speak out on corruption and report on abuse. Only support candidates for public office who say no to corruption and demonstrate transparency, accountability and integrity.   Show your solidarity with the billions of victims of corruption around the world and add your voice to those who are saying enough is enough! All of us have the power to fight corruption.   Jan. 2017   Corruption and inequality: how populists mislead people, by Finn Heinrich   With the launch of Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2016 just five days after Donald Trump’s inauguration as US President, it’s timely to look at the links between populism, socio-economic malaise and the anti-corruption agenda.   Indeed, Trump and many other populist leaders regularly make a connection between a “corrupt elite” interested only in enriching themselves and their (rich) supporters and the marginalisation of “working people”.   Is there evidence to back this up? Yes. Corruption and social inequality are indeed closely related and provide a source for popular discontent. Yet, the track record of populist leaders in tackling this problem is dismal; they use the corruption-inequality message to drum up support but have no intention of tackling the problem seriously.   But, first, let’s look at what corruption has to do with inequality and vice versa.   Corruption and inequality – a vicious cycle, left largely unattended   The relationship between the corruption scores in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) and the degree of social exclusion as measured by the Social Inclusion Index for OECD countries (from the Bertelsmann Foundation’s Sustainable Governance Indicators) and by the Welfare Regime indicator for the rest of the world (from the Bertelsmann Foundation’s Transformation Index) shows a strong correlation between corruption and social exclusion.   For example, Mexico is in the bottom third of the CPI, indicating significant corruption, and has a score of less than 3.5 on the Social Inclusion Index that indicates that many people are marginalised and excluded. However, Denmark, which tops the CPI also performs well on the social inclusion index.   Still, correlation is not necessarily causation. Could it be that there’s a third characteristic that causes social inequality and corruption to travel in the same direction?   A likely possibility is a country’s level of development, as richer countries might be able to “afford” to spend more money on social services and redistribution of wealth while also addressing corruption.   A multivariate regression with both GDP per capita (measuring a country’s level of development) and social exclusion as predictors of corruption shows that social inclusion is a much stronger predictor of corruption levels than GDP per capita. In the case of the “remainder of the world” country sub-set, for every step increase in the 10-point social inclusion indicator, the CPI score would improve by as much as 5.5 points on its 1-100 scale.   This finding is actually nothing new. There has long been a scholarly consensus that corruption and inequality are closely interrelated. The two phenomena interact in a vicious cycle: corruption leads to an unequal distribution of power in society which, in turn, translates into an unequal distribution of wealth and opportunity.   State capture, grand corruption and the death of democracy   While the anti-corruption community has largely ignored the mutually reinforcing dynamics between corruption and social inequality, there are two quite different movements that made these issues a core element of their campaigning.   First is the emerging global inequality movement – the 99 percenters – spearheaded by progressive NGOs and supported by thinkers, such as Thomas Piketty and Branko Milanovic.   An influential 2014 report by Oxfam, titled Working for the Few summarises the main point: “Extreme economic inequality and political capture are too often interdependent. Left unchecked, political institutions become undermined and governments overwhelmingly serve the interests of economic elites to the detriment of ordinary people.”   In other words, corruption can flourish when elites control the levers of power without any accountability.   The second movement that links corruption and inequality is also global but it is not progressive. It is reactive, nativist and often right-wing. It is exemplified by politicians like Trump in the US, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski in Poland and presidential candidate Marine le Pen of the National Front in France.   According to Trump, for example: “Our corrupt political establishment that is the greatest power behind the efforts at radical globalization and the disenfranchisement of working people. Their financial resources are virtually unlimited, their political resources are unlimited, their media resources are unmatched.”   And from Kaczynski: “Corruption is a part of this system that we have to change. Democracy is… endangered by corruption, by the decomposition of the state, by all that constitutes the system of Donald Tusk. We believe that this system is about to collapse, that its end will come, that corruption will be subdued, that our considerable possibilities will be used, that Poland will become a free country of free Polish people.”   Judging by the success of the populists at the ballot box, it is clear that they have been able to exploit the disenchantment of people with “the corrupt system” and present themselves as the only “way out” of the vicious cycle described above.   “Drain the swamp”, Trump’s epithet for reforming Washington D.C., clearly resonated with US voters and there is strong academic evidence that corruption as an issue was indeed salient for many anti-establishment voters in post-Communist countries.   The question is: are these voters backing a real anti-corruption proponent or supporting con artists?   By and large, anti-establishment parties fail to address – and often significantly increase – the very corruption they set out to get rid of. When an anti-corruption party won elections in New Delhi, for example, hopes were high but schisms and fights stalled progress. There are other examples in Italy, Slovakia and Hungary.   In the case of Donald Trump, the first signs of such a betrayal of his promises are already there. The talk is of rolling back key anti-corruption legislation and ignoring potential conflicts of interests that will exacerbate – not control – corruption.   Will this lead to his downfall? Evidence from other populist leaders (Erdogan in Turkey and Orban in Hungary and also Maduro in Venezuela) is not encouraging. They appear almost immune to challenges about unethical and corrupt behavior. While Turkey and Hungary have declined on the Corruption Perceptions Index since the election of populist leaders and Venezuela has been near the bottom of the table for years, the populist leaders seem to be more invincible than ever.   As history shows, turning back the corruption tide is often as hard as preventing a phony corruption fighter from getting into office in the first place. To pre-empt this, mainstream governments need to get much more serious about breaking the vicious cycle between corruption and social inequality.   We would advocate: Stopping the revolving door between business leaders and high-ranking government positions. Holding the corrupt to account rather than letting corrupt officials hide behind political immunity. Enforcing greater controls on banks, luxury goods sellers, lawyers, accountants and real estate agents who help launder corrupt money. Outlawing the use of secret companies that hide the identity of the real owners.   These proposals require the investment of substantial political capital by government leaders to confront entrenched interests. It is in the interests of democratic governments to use that capital so they can again deliver on their central promise to provide equal opportunities for all. Visit the related web page
	South African tragedy: Nearly 100 mental health patients die due to inadequate care by SABC, BBC, The Observer, agencies South Africa, United Kingdom   1 Feb. 2017   South African tragedy: Nearly 100 mental health patients die due to inadequate care. (AFP, SABC)   At least 94 patients with mental health issues died after South African authorities moved them from hospitals to unlicensed health facilities that were likened to concentration camps, a government investigation has revealed.   Many of the deaths were due to pneumonia, dehydration and diarrhoea as the patients were hurriedly moved to 27 “poorly prepared” facilities in a cost-cutting measure that showed evidence of neglect.   The health ombudsman report, which has sparked uproar, detailed how some patients were collected from the Life Esidimeni hospital in Gauteng province last year using open pickup trucks.   As the scandal broke, the provincial health minister, Qedani Mahlangu, resigned over the findings, which directly implicated her in the move.   According to the report, which was compiled after 80 hours of listening to family members and inspectors during the investigation – relatives were left in the dark over where the patients were, in unheated centres that some witnesses said were like concentration camps.   The centres also failed to provide seriously ill patients with enough food and water, leaving them severely malnourished, underweight and in some cases dying from dehydration.   Gauteng’s provincial health department had terminated its longstanding contract with the Life Esidimeni hospital and moved more than 1,300 patients to an “unstructured, unpredictable, substandard caring environment”, the report said.   “One person has died from a mental health-related illness. None of the 93 [others] have died from a mental illness,” the health ombudsman, Malegapuru Makgoba, told the media as the report was released.   Makgoba said the death toll was likely to rise as investigations continued into the scandal.   The report pointed towards the neglect that led to the deaths being caused by profit-seeking. The 27 healthcare centres “were mysteriously and poorly selected” and were “unable to distinguish between the highly specialised non-stop professional care requirements … and a business opportunity”, it said.   * SABC: http://bit.ly/2kUjDZW http://www.ohsc.org.za/index.php/news/media-releases/129-report-into-deaths-of-mentally-ill-patients-gauteng-province-3   Jan. 2017   Calls for increased funding for hospitals and social care as patients die in UK. (The Observer)   The National Health Service (NHS) in England is facing a “humanitarian crisis” as hospitals and ambulance services struggle to keep up with rising demand, the British Red Cross has said, following the deaths of two patients after long waits on trolleys in hospital corridors.   Worcestershire Royal hospital launched an investigation into the deaths and did not deny reports that they had occurred after long waits on trolleys in corridors over the new year period. On Friday, doctors’ leaders said more patients could die because of the chaos engulfing the NHS.   The deaths prompted claims that the health service was “broken”, and long waits for care, chronic bed shortages and staff shortages were leading towards what the head of Britain’s Accident and Emergency (A&E) doctors called “untold patient misery”, due to lack of adequate Government funding.   Mike Adamson, chief executive of the British Red Cross, said his organisation was “on the front line”. He said: "We are responding to the humanitarian crisis in our hospital and ambulance services across the country. We have been called in to support the NHS and help get people home from hospital and free up much needed beds. This means deploying our team of emergency volunteers and even calling on our partner Land Rover to lend vehicles to transport patients and get the system moving.”   It is believed that one woman died of a heart attack after waiting for 35 hours on a trolley in a corridor, and another man suffered an aneurysm while on a trolley, and could not be saved.   Worcestershire Royal hospital, admitted that it was under serious pressure, partly as a result of the extra strain hospitals face during winter. Many other patients who visited Worcestershire Royal hospital this week told news agencies of long waits in A&E, corridors lined with patients, and overstretched staff doing their best to cope.   Dr Mark Holland, the president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said: “For a long time we have been saying that the NHS is on the edge. But people dying after long spells in hospital corridors shows that the NHS is now broken.   “We have got to the point where the efforts of staff to prop up the system are no longer enough to keep the system afloat. We are asking NHS staff to provide a first class service, but with third world levels of staffing and third world levels of beds.   “That so many other hospitals in England are facing the same pressures as the one in Worcester means that other fatalities could occur. I would suggest that the same thing could happen in other hospitals, because lots of hospitals are under the same pressures.”   It is also possible that mainly frail elderly patients admitted to hospital over the festive period may have died because they received inadequate care on wards where staff were ill-equipped to deal with their conditions, Holland added. He could not estimate how many may have died as a result.   Fifty of England’s 152 NHS acute hospital trusts were forced to declare an alert last month, and sometimes temporarily scale back the level of care they offered to patients, because they could not cope with the number of people seeking medical attention, according to analysis by the Nuffield Trust health thinktank. Every hospital in Essex has had to go on “black alert” – the NHS’s highest level – in recent weeks.   In December, seven trusts had to declare the highest level of emergency 15 times, meaning they were unable to give patients comprehensive care. Paramedics have told the Guardian they have had to wait for up to eight hours at a time outside A&E units to discharge a patient into the care of hospital staff, because emergency departments cannot accept any more admissions, thereby lengthening 999 response times.   Dr Taj Hassan, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said figures it obtained from hospitals across the UK showed some were treating as little as 50%-60% of A&E patients within four hours, far below the required 95% target.   “Figures cannot account for untold patient misery,” he said. “Overcrowded departments, overflowing with patients, can result in avoidable deaths.” Hassan and Holland blamed the government’s underfunding of the NHS and social care systems for contributing to hospitals problems.   “The emergency care system is on its knees, despite the huge efforts of staff who are struggling to cope with the intense demands being put upon them. The situation is intolerable for both staff and patients,” said Hassan, who is an A&E consultant at two hospitals in Leeds.   http://www.channel4.com/news/are-mortality-rates-affected-by-nhs-cuts   * London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, University of Oxford: 30,000 Excess deaths in 2015 may be linked to failures in health and social care: http://bit.ly/2llkNhD   Jan 2017   British Red Cross says there is a "humanitarian crisis" in hospitals in England. (BBC News)   Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn urged Prime Minister Theresa May to tell the country how she would fix the "national scandal" of the NHS. Mr Corbyn said: "The fact is, this government have repeatedly failed to put the necessary resources into our health service, while they have cut social care and wasted billions on a top-down reorganisation to accelerate privatisation."   It comes as a third of hospital trusts in England warned they struggled to cope with patient last month. Figures show that 42 accident and emergency departments ordered ambulances to divert to other hospitals last week - double the number during the same period in 2015.   Diversions can only happen when a department is under significant pressure, such as lacking the capacity to take more patients or having queues of ambulances outside for significantly prolonged periods, and when all existing plans to deal with a surge in patients have been unsuccessful.   The Royal College of Emergency Medicine said staff were under intense pressure, while the Society for Acute Medicine warned this month could be the worst January the NHS had ever faced.   Dr Mark Holland, told BBC Breakfast: "We have been predicting that we would face a winter from hell. I think that time has arrived."   Professor Keith Willett, national director for acute episodes of care at NHS England, admitted demand was at its highest level ever and staff were under "a level of pressure we haven''t seen before".   Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said on Friday that it was investigating two deaths at Worcestershire Royal Hospital''s A&E department in the last week. A patients watchdog has called for an investigation.   John Freeman said his wife Pauline, who is recovering from a stroke, spent 38 hours on a trolley at the same hospital because of overcrowding. "There was probably in excess of 20 trolleys all stacked up. This is going back to the dark ages almost."   Trusts around the country are taking to social media to urge patients to stay away from A&E, unless it is an emergency or a life-threatening illness.   The British Red Cross Chief executive Mike Adamson said: "The British Red Cross is on the front line, responding to the humanitarian crisis in our hospital and ambulance services across the country.. We have been called in to support the National Health Service and help get people home from hospital and free up much needed beds.   "We''ve seen people sent home without clothes; some suffer falls and are not found for days, while others are not washed because there is no carer there to help them."   Speaking to the BBC, Mr Corbyn said it was "unprecedented" for the government to be criticised by the Red Cross, which he said was "essentially a volunteer organisation".   He said there was a "crisis" both in social care and hospital funding which needed to be dealt with "urgently".   "It needs government intervention now," he said. "We have health care as a human right in this country - that''s what the NHS is for. The NHS needs the money now in order to care for people."   http://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/06/nhs-faces-humanitarian-crisis-rising-demand-british-red-cross http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/07/observer-view-on-nhs-crisis http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/18/the-observer-view-local-services-budget-cuts http://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network http://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs http://www.jrf.org.uk/solve-uk-poverty   * Grenfell Fire Tragedy: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/16/grenfell-tower-price-britain-inequality-high-rise http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/16/theresa-may-scared-grenfell-survivors-finished-austerity-cameron-osborne http://inequality.org/great-divide/london-fire-fuels-movement-tackle-inequality-britain/ Visit the related web page
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