You don't need to visit a hospital to know it is not a good time for British healthcare. The giant laser beam of privatisation has its cross hair firmly fixed on the NHS, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is blocking the press from learning about secret meetings between himself and leading would-be privatisers, and junior doctors are protesting in the streets about contracts he's imagined up that will force them to work increasingly unreasonable hours for increasingly less money. At a time like this, it's kinda weird to think that one of the most high profile champions of the NHS right now is ya boy Justin Bieber.Back in December, when Bieber realised he was racing for UK Christmas number one with the Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Choir's "A Bridge Over You", he tweeted his support for their campaign and encouraged his 72 million Twitter followers to buy their single instead. He wrote: "For one week it's ok not to be Number One. Let's do the right thing and help them win. It's Christmas." The NHS Choir went on to scoop the top spot, ousting "Love Yourself" which is an absolute banger too, and raising money for countless British health charities in the process.As a Canadian, Bieber has a track record for giving free healthcare the big Justin upvote, once labelling the US health care system as "evil" when he was just 16-years-old, after witnessing how his bodyguard at the time was financially crippled when their baby arrived prematurely. "In Canada, if your baby's premature, he stays in the hospital as long as he needs to, and then you go home. We go to the doctor and we don't need to worry about paying him, but here, your whole life, you're broke because of medical bills."Now, Bieber has met with the London choir of physiotherapists, porters, administrators, doctors and nurses, to dish out high fives and congratulations for their success. The choir were also given the honour of presenting him with his Official Chart Breaker award for for being the first artist in UK history to occupy positions 1, 2 and 3. On his way out, he also told them to "Keep making smashers!" so hold out for that fire NHS Choir mixtape in late 2016. Soon come.Junior doctor and choir spokesperson Katie Rogerson said: "By doing this, he not only recognised our mental health charities (MIND, SAMH and NIAMH) and Carers UK, but also acknowledged every single member of our hardworking NHS team across the UK. On a personal note… it gives me a bit of street cred with my paediatric patients as Dr Katie! I’m now a Belieber in every sense of the word!"Watch the video of Bieber meeting the choir below.
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