Private medicine, which denies healthcare to those who cannot pay, is not consistent with the Hippocratic oath that doctors take to do no harm.
How does the Hippocratic oath square with private medicine? Are not doctors who work for a system that denies healthcare to those unable to pay, doing harm? It surely harms people when they are unable to obtain treatments that would otherwise be available at private clinics with unused capacity if only they had enough money .
Private medicine is not healthcare. It is healthcare for some and denial of it to others. As such, it causes doctors who work in private healthcare to violate their Hippocratic oath. Whilst doctors and health workers should rightly be paid for their work, money in exchange for healthcare is only ethical if the exchange is within the reach of all. That is what a tax funded national health service provides. Not just medical treatment but a fulfillment of the Hippocratic ethic, without which harm cannot be avoided.