4:05am Saturday 5th July 2008
By Joe Willis
GORDON Brown pledged to help the NHS continue being the envy of the world as he celebrated the organisation's 60th birthday in the region yesterday.
The Prime Minister was invited to cut a birthday cake during his tour of Sunderland Royal Hospital's new cardiology laboratory.
During the visit, Mr Brown said the NHS would become more focused on providing preventative care to help improve the health of the nation.
"I learned early on about the value of the NHS," he said.
"I injured myself playing rugby when I was at school in the late Sixties and I needed an operation in hospital.
"The nurses and surgeons worked wonderfully and they saved my eyesight.
"I was on the eye ward for some time and every evening at 8pm a trolley came round offering a choice of drinks. You could have either Guinness or beer. I was 16, but I still knew it was for the best.
"I don't know if the clinicians were offered it as well."
He said the nation should be proud of the NHS. "We have created a service which is for everybody, irrespective of wealth or background, where treatment is available according to people's need," he said.
"Health is not something which can be purchased; it is something which is guaranteed.
"The NHS is something we can be incredibly proud of.
"It was enshrined in 1948 and has served the country for 60 years. I hope it will be able to serve the country for the next 60 years in the same way, and better. We are now trying to build an NHS for the 21st Century."
Former shipyard worker Ethel Clark, 87, shook Mr Brown's hand when he greeted staff and patients.
The great-grandmother, from Grangetown, Middlesbrough, who was 27 when the NHS was launched, said: "I owe my hearing to the NHS.
"Without it I'd be deaf. It's important for people like me, who cannot afford to go private.
I have voted Labour all my life and whatever else this lot might have done, they have improved the hospitals, and that is a good thing."
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