Durham health cuts show need for new workers' party

SEVEN HUNDRED 'surplus' jobs were cut from Durham's NHS in the last year. Over 5,000 NHS staff received letters with their pay-slips last month asking them to take voluntary redundancy or early retirement. No compulsory redundancies have yet been announced but this worry is hanging over nurses' heads.

Hannah Walter

Staff report being unable to do their jobs properly due to under-staffing. Wards are being closed; hospitals are full; operating theatres are being shut while there are long waiting-lists for operations.

New Labour claim they want more 'care in the community'. People have the right to be looked after at home if they wish to be. However at the same time as hospital wards are closing and the number of hospital staff are cut, care in the community services are being reduced!

Local New Labour politicians claim to be against local NHS cuts but their party votes through these cuts on a national level. Labour today is a big business party. It was Gordon Brown that agreed the budgets that gave his big business pals huge tax cuts while selling off sections of the NHS on the basis that they were 'unaffordable'.

We need a new workers' party which will stand up in defence of the NHS and pensions and to fight against war and privatisation.

Campaign for a New Workers' Party public meeting hosted by the Socialist Party - Defend the NHS.

Speakers include Dr Jackie Grunsell, GP and Defend our NHS councillor.

7.30pm Tuesday 17 July, Elvet Riverside One (opposite Three Tuns Hotel), New Elvet, Durham.