cancer sufferers living in poverty

A leading charity yesterday warned that thousands of cancer sufferers are facing poverty .
"Patients tell us that money worries are second only to physical pain as a cause of stress. More needs to be done to ensure that patients who are already trying to cope with a cancer diagnosis are not worried sick about paying the bills." Elspeth Atkinson, Macmillan Cancer Support's director for Scotland said .

A familiar echo from the same charity back in 2004 which reported at least three quarters of the million Britons with cancer suffer from financial hardship brought on by the disease, including enforced job losses, discrimination and poor benefit allowances.

Nothing much changes , does it ? We are opposed to trying to patch up capitalism and we have always said that such reforms will end in failure that cynical opponents have dubbed us the "we told you so" party. Charities such as Macmillian lobby decision makers to change the policies that keep people poor. They claim that this can work, if enough pressure is brought to bear .Is this true? As socialists, we have to say that the answer is "no". Charities simply desire to redistribute poverty, enabling the abjectly poor to benefit from the guilt of the moderately poor.