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Stephen Hawking: a scientist who never forgot the value of the NHS

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In one of his last articles for the Guardian, Stephen Hawking confessed that, thanks to the celebrity he had gained – not many theoretical physicists could boast cameo roles in Star Trek and the Simpsons – and “the isolation imposed by my illness, I feel as though my ivory tower is getting taller”.

And yet the last scholar who could be accused of living in an ivory tower, aloof from the problems of the world, was Stephen Hawking. Though he gazed at the stars, he never lost sight of the troubles of the Earth, including those of his own country.

Which is why his final piece for the Guardian, published in August last year, was headlined, Jeremy Hunt can attack me all he wants – but he is wrong to say the NHS is working. A week earlier Hawking had issued a plea to save the health service from what he saw as a damaging set of policy decisions: “underfunding and cuts, privatising services, the public sector pay cap, the new contract imposed on junior doctors, and removal of the student nurses’ bursary”.


Source :- theguardian
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