NHS campaign reports
Fight to save the NHS
NEWS THAT up to 1,200 NHS workers could be sacked by the University
Hospital of North Staffordshire has shocked and angered everyone in the
area. The hitlist includes 15 consultants, 370 nurses and midwives, 73
scientists, 60 ancillary staff, 180 clerks and 63 senior managers. They
plan to cut outpatient appointments by a staggering 27,000 and get rid
of another 160 beds by speeding up the length of stay for patients
Andy Bentley, Stoke Socialist Party
As usual we are being told that all this won’t affect patient care or
the services provided by the hospital! Do these people really think that
anyone believes this rubbish?
All this to clear a "debt" of just £18 million which is
chicken feed to a New Labour government that is wasting £5 million
every day fighting a pointless war in Iraq.
NHS workers are incensed. Despite the stressful conditions they face
daily, an appeal for voluntary redundancies has only identified 100
takers. So now they are talking about compulsory redundancies.
In response, staff have gone into official dispute and pulled out of
any negotiations on job losses. Nurses told Socialist Party members
campaigning against these cuts that: "Many are prepared to strike
in the long-term interests of the hospital and to defend patient
care."
Stoke South New Labour MP Rob Flello said he would be pressing Tony
Blair: "For assurances that funding would be made available for
those made redundant to retrain."
This is typical of the New Labour "white flag" response.
One nurse’s reaction to this was: "We don’t want money for NHS
workers to ‘retrain’. After years of training, newly qualified nurses
are already being told there is no job for them. We want £18 million to
stop these redundancies and cuts."
A campaign of public resistance is being called for by many groups in
the area. Ian Syme, from North Staffs Healthcare said: "This has
got to be resisted by the community. It is the equivalent of closing a
small acute hospital and cannot be accepted by the public."
Stoke Socialist Party councilors, Paul and Dave Sutton, are pushing
for the hospital management to be ‘called in’ to the council’s scrutiny
commission which has the power to refer them to the health minister.
But they also joined Socialist Party members in the city centre and
in Abbey Hulton to build support for a campaign to defend our NHS and
local people from the ravages of these attacks.
Because New Labour, Tories, BNP, Independents and Lib Dems are doing
nothing effective to defend the jobs of NHS workers and hospital
services, the local Campaign for a New Workers’ Party have organised a
public meeting to launch a broad-based campaign of opposition.
For a national campaign against cuts and privatisation.
Demand the trade unions call a national demonstration to link
together local NHS campaigns.
"We don’t need no relocation"
A HUNDRED nursing and midwifery students staged an angry
demonstration at Sheffield University last week against plans to
relocate their lectures 13 miles away in the Dearne Valley!
The university has lost the contract to provide undergraduate nursing
degree courses. It is running down the training school, pushing out
current trainees, so it can use the facilities for the post-graduate
course and another faculty. Around 500 student nurses and midwives face
the prospect of a 30-mile round trip every day just to go to lectures!
Chants of "we don’t need no relocation" and "we shall
not be moved" rang out as the students protested outside Firth
Court (the Vice-Chancellor’s building) and Winter Street (one of the
training school buildings). The students were encouraged by tooting
horns of support and later, after a meeting with the executive, support
from the Students Union.
Protest organiser Ian Birkinshaw, a third year student nurse, told
the socialist: "The ‘typical’ nursing student is a 29-year old
woman, and usually has family commitments. We’ll lose three hours a day
just travelling.
"Where do we get those hours from? From associated study time,
from assignments, from time with our children? Students are being asked
to pay the price for the university’s unseemly haste in getting rid of
us.
"They say it’s down to cost but the two sites will still be used
– it’s just that they want to make more money on them running other
courses. Traditionally nurses are not the most radical of people. But
this has got them really angry!"
Huddersfield on the march again
FOR THE third time in as many months Save Huddersfield NHS Campaign
took to the streets on Saturday to show that in the last week before the
Trust’s unelected fat-cats decide the fate of local hospital services
the campaign is very much alive and kicking.
Vicky Perrin, Save Huddersfield NHS Campaign
Around 250 campaigners braved the bitter cold and the mood was one of
fighting to the last. Andrew Bilson-Page from the NHS campaign in Kendal
and Socialist Party member addressed the rally with a very encouraging
report of how their campaign had successfully kept maternity services,
accident and emergency and the mental health unit in Kendal.
Dr Jackie Grunsell, campaign secretary and Socialist Party member,
called for a mass turnout by the campaign at the Trust’s meeting at the
football stadium on 22 March to show the true force of the opposition to
these proposals.
The campaign is standing three candidates, including Jackie in the
local elections giving the people of Huddersfield the chance to vote for
councillors who will fight for their public services.
The demo was well attended by Socialist Party members from across the
region and 45 copies of the socialist were sold.
Union secretary slams Labour’s health policies
IN THE space of only a month the size of the Sheffield NHS Trusts’
deficits, reported on the front pages of the local paper, has shot up
from £16 million, to £25 million, to a staggering £100 million –
projected in three years time.
JON SMITH (GMB branch secretary at the Sheffield Children’s Hospital)
gave his reaction to the socialist:
"AS AN NHS employee for over 10 years and a trade unionist for
nearly 15, I’m shocked, hurt and dismayed how a so-called Labour
government can systematically demolish our health service."I’m sick and tired or hearing on local and national news how
the NHS deficit is down to staff pay, more expensive drugs, or simple
bad management. Never a mention of the money this government has
pumped into the private sector."Never a mention of the money being pumped into making trusts
apply for Foundation Trust status. Never a mention of how much it’s
cost to set up independent treatment centres and definitely not a
mention of the contracts these centres have been given to carry out
operations that are never carried out!"Times are now getting desperate in the NHS. If we are to
carry on with this ‘market’ system we may as well say goodbye to it
all now. Trade unions, the public, and MPs need to act now to keep our
NHS."
Sheffield: 165% increase in our home care charges!
IN FEBRUARY, without any consultation with service users and carers,
Sheffield’s New Labour council announced that it intended to increase
home care charges by 165%!
Mike Higgins
The council wants to make 3,400 older and disabled people pay, on
average, £500 more each year so that it can raise £1.7 million to
enable it to balance its budget.
Disabled and older people organised a lobby of the cabinet and full
council meetings where these increases were discussed.
The council promised consultation with disabled and older people
about the increases before making a final decision. Yet the day after
the council meeting, service users received letters telling them about
the increases in their charges! Then we received letters inviting us to
a ‘consultation’ meeting with less than five days notice!
We need these services to live independently and safely at home. The
real effect of these increases will be that many older and disabled
people will withdraw from using these services because they cannot
afford them.
This will mean an increase in hospital admissions and an unacceptable
increase in risk to life and limb as people withdraw from using
services.
One single person, Lee, only has benefits to live on. But this hasn’t
stopped them raising his charges from £16 a week to a staggering £40 a
week, leaving him in an impossible situation.
My charges are due to increase from £20 a week to £67-£75 a week.
My partner faces an increase from £51 a week to the maximum of £100
under the new punitive charging regime. We neither of us have any
savings and both pay taxes. We simply can’t afford to pay this massive
increase.
A group called Sheffield Coalition Against Community Care Charges (SCACCC)
has been set up to campaign to get this increase dropped.
We will petition and lobby the next council meeting at the end of
March and ensure that, if the council still doesn’t see sense at this
meeting, this becomes a key electoral issue in the forthcoming 4 May
council elections with candidates being put on the spot across the City
about where they stand.
Contact SCACCC: email us at [email protected]
