DAVID CAMERON constantly accuses Ed Miliband of “weaponising” the NHS as a hot topic of debate leading up to May’s general election. So out of touch are the PM and his sidekicks from what the electorate feel, that they actually think Miliband and Labour will be offended by the term “weaponising” and that the public will react by seeing the Tory viewpoint.

It doesn’t matter whether you are middle class or working class — the NHS is beloved by a cross-section of the public. It is so beloved that it even featured in the opening of the Olympic Games ceremony in London in 2012.

Our NHS always suffers when it is in Tory hands and this time around it has suffered intolerably at the hands of the Con-Dems. Miliband is right to weaponise it. He is right to follow in Nye Bevan’s footsteps for, as Nye said, “the NHS will only last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it.”

To me, weaponising the topic of free healthcare for all is just a mild start. The Con-Dems promised no top-down reorganisation of the NHS, but have spent millions doing just that.

They promised that there would be more doctors, more nurses more midwives, yet staff are crying openly on wards unable to cope with the sheer numbers of patients.

Ambulances are queuing up for hours outside hospitals with dangerously ill people in them, all waiting for a bed to become available. Tents have been erected in hospital grounds to treat patients.

Cameron points the finger at socialist Wales and our NHS here, yet is the author of austerity and a hugely slashed budget for Wales in Westminster.

Tory Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt admitted himself that it took so long to get a GP appointment he brought his own child to A&E to be treated instead.

What further evidence is needed to flash up the red light? The current system is not working under this abysmal coalition government.

Labour’s shadow health secretary Andy Burnham has an answer that can be put into practice if Labour win in May — a joined-up healthcare system. If bed-blocking is occurring in hospital, usually because elderly patients requiring a lot of care will not be accepted into nursing homes, then Labour will unite the NHS with social services and take a holistic approach

It appears simple, but will require a full-scale change to ensure the service is working to its full potential and not being undermined at every level by an NHS working separately from its partners. A holistic approach is terribly needed, and Burnham is wholeheartedly committed to it.

Our NHS is free. This is something that those of us born after 1948, with no recollection of what life was like when you had to pay to see a doctor, take quite often for granted or as our British “right.”.

That is fine when we have a Labour government in power. We are then reassured that the NHS is in safe hands and free at the point of need, whether that be A&E or our GP.

But what would happen if, come the general election in May, we woke up with a Tory government, or indeed a Con-Kip coalition? I’ve heard it on the doorsteps and while phoning the electorate: “I used to vote Tory/Labour but I am voting Ukip in May.”

In almost all cases this is due to worries about immigration and no other issue. I ask voters to look beyond immigration and ask them what the NHS would be like under Nigel Farage and Ukip.

The Ukip manifesto is currently in mayhem as it has not been completed in time, but Farage himself spoke out this week on the party’s plan for the NHS.

Farage wants to bring in US-style private medical insurance. He has said: “The state-funded health service needs to be replaced with a private insurance model.”  This will mean the end of our free NHS for all.

Within our NHS, you could find yourself sitting next to an MP, a banker or a lord as you wait in A&E. Health emergencies are a great equaliser and the same doctors and nurses in the NHS bandage us all up, regardless of ability to pay or class.

This would be erased under Ukip. In the US those who have no private insurance and can’t afford it are sent to “ghetto hospitals,” the likes of which we do not want to see darken our shores in Britain.

Ask yourself this: is your precious vote in May going to be used as a protest vote that could ultimately destroy our free medical care — our NHS? Will you kick yourself when you are handing over £10 to see a GP? Will you be in distress about where to find the money to pay for your long-term health condition and think back to that silly wasted protest vote for Ukip?

Farage and his kind are chancers. Hours after he spoke about the need for private health insurance replacing the free NHS service, Ukip health spokesperson Louise Bours said they “reject that idea.”

But Ukip is Farage. He alone decides what policies the party commits to and private health insurance is one of them.

As for Cameron and his cronies, they are privatising and selling off chunks of the NHS to their mates. The blood service has been privatised and lots more will follow. We are seeing privatisation of the NHS by the back door.

The Tories like to be seen as cleverer than Ukip and a lot more slippery — they lie to our faces about protecting the NHS, then simply go ahead and privatise it anyway.

So as I sit and read the powerful testimony by Harry Smith — a soon-to-be 92-year-old who grew up when we had no free health system — I can only be moved when he talks about how his sister died from TB.  He offers a stark warning: “Don’t let my past be your future.”

Our free NHS is for all. Weaponise it, shout for it, fight for it, vote for it. For our own sake, don’t let us lose it.