Saturday 24 November, defying cold driving rain, up to 10,000 residents and staff marched to defend Lewisham Accident and Emergency (A&E) and linked arms around it., photo Socialist Party

Saturday 24 November, defying cold driving rain, up to 10,000 residents and staff marched to defend Lewisham Accident and Emergency (A&E) and linked arms around it., photo Socialist Party   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Around 10,000 NHS staff and local people demonstrated on 24 November against the closure of Lewisham hospital’s A&E department and other services.

The government and its cuts-hungry special administrator may have hoped that was the end of the protests. It most certainly isn’t!

A meeting organised on 29 November by Lewisham Keep Our NHS public attracted hundreds of angry local people, who applauded the work that had already been done building a community focus for resistance.

But one of the demonstration’s main slogans was “We won’t die for the PFI” and the government has its axe poised for destruction this month and next.

Speakers from the floor, including health worker and former Socialist Party councillor Chris Flood, proposed the main step that workers have to consider when major attacks on jobs and services threaten – strike action. Chris’ view was echoed by other speakers.

Strike action is not an easy option but most health workers agree that it is far better to have hospital services restricted for a few days of determined strike than to see them permanently destroyed through Con-Dem cuts and closures!

More and more NHS workers realise that such bold trade union action would gain enormous support and give new force to the campaign against cuts and closures, to cancel the PFI debts and save our NHS.