India’s Peoples’ Polyclinics Put Community Healthcare Over Profit

In the 1940s, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) started a movement to address people’s lack of access to healthcare, especially in rural areas. The first People’s Polyclinic (‘Praja Vaidyasala’) in Nellore was founded on the principle that anyone who needs treatment should be treated, regardless of their ability to pay. The Nellore People’s Polyclinic (PPC) trains doctors and volunteers to provide healthcare to peasants, agricultural workers, and the rural poor, who lack access to healthcare and cannot afford to travel to urban areas for care. The Nellore PPC inspired many more people in the communist movement to start their own polyclinics. Communist polyclinics in India now provide low-cost or free healthcare to thousands of people every day, saving lives that would otherwise be lost to the private healthcare system. The U.S. could use a movement like this. The private healthcare system in the U.S. has left thousands of uninsured, poor, houseless, Black, and Brown people without access to what could be lifesaving medical care. COVID-19 has only made these disparities worse and led to more preventable deaths. We must stand up and say, “Healthcare for the people, not for profit!”

Workers Voice Socialist Movement

We are workers, employed and unemployed, youth, students, and seniors. We are multi-racial and multi-national and organize for the unity of the working class. We are funded by and for workers, for the liberation of all workers and oppressed people.

We organize for jobs and higher wages, against racism, women’s, and LGBTQ oppression, and for solidarity with immigrants. We organize for community schools, lower rents, and food on our tables. We organize for workers’ power so that everything will one day be removed from the capitalists’ private ownership.

We oppose the Pentagon, which is looting our tax dollars and handing them over to war-profiteering private companies, while social programs are gutted. We oppose war for empire which is pursued only to lower our wages and plunder the world’s resources while destroying the environment. We reject the monopoly media who feed us lie after lie.

The labor of workers produces enormous wealth here in Louisiana, the U.S. and the world– so much wealth that everyone could have housing, meaningful jobs, education, healthcare, and genuine equality. But this wealth is stolen and privately owned by the capitalist class for their greed and profit. We believe that we, the workers of the world, can unite in revolution to overcome capitalism and build a better world.

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28