Episode 2: Pirate Care and Docs Not Cops

Broadcast Live 28 April 2020
Guests: Valeria Graziano and Kitty Worthing

For this episode we are joined by guests Valeria Graziano from the transnational research project Pirate Care and Kitty Worthing from the campaign group Docs Not Cops.

Docs Not Cops is a campaign group of NHS professionals and patients who believe health is a right and not a privilege. Since 23rd October 2017, when NHS England introduced regulations requiring ID checks for all patients accessing most secondary (non-emergency) care. They have been campaigning to restore the values that built our NHS of universal care and compassion. That no one should be afraid to go to the doctor, either because they can’t pay or might be punished. And that doctors should not have to police the people they treat.

Pirate Care is a transnational research project and a network of activists, scholars and practitioners who stand against the criminalization of solidarity & for a common care infrastructure. Neoliberal policies have for the last two decades re-organised the basic care provisions that were previously considered cornerstones of democratic life – healthcare, housing, access to knowledge, right to asylum, freedom of mobility, social benefits, etc. – turning them into tools for surveilling, excluding and punishing the most vulnerable. The name Pirate Care refers to those initiatives that have emerged in opposition to such political climate by self-organising technologically-enabled care & solidarity networks.