Anarchists had no problem running hospitals in the past. Centralization just increases the amount of time information has to travel to get to its destination.

Our comrades laid the foundations of a new health system .... The new medical service embraced all of Catalonia. It constituted a great apparatus whose parts were geographically distributed according to different needs, all in accord with an overall plan. Catalonia was divided into nine [sic] zones: Barcelona, Tarragona, Lerida, Reus, Borghida, Ripoll, and Haute Pyreenees. In turn, all the surrounding villages and towns were served from these centers.

Distributed throughout Catalonia were twenty-seven towns with a total of thirty-six health centers conducting services so thoroughly that every village, every hamlet, e\lery isolated peasant in the mountains, every woman, every child, anywhere, received adequate, up-to-date medical care. In each of the nine zones there was a central syndicate and a Control Committee located in Barcelona. Every department was autonomous within its own sphere. But this autonomy was not synonymous with isolation. The Central Committee in Barcelona, chosen by all the sections, met once a week with one delegate from each section to deal with common problems and to implement the general plan ....

The people immediately benefited from the projects of the health syndicate. The syndicate managed all hospitals and clinics. Six hospitals were opened in Barcelona .... Eight new sanitariums were installed in converted luxurious homes ideally situated amidst mountains and pine forests. It was no easy task to convert these homes into efficient hospitals with all new facilities. One of them, for the treatment of tuberculosis, was considered among the best installations anywhere ....

The anarchist collectives by Sam Dolgoff

Phage 99