Dara Fitzgerald, West London Socialist Party
The NHS is at breaking point. Years of Tory underfunding and cuts have led to longer waiting times, reduced services, underpaid staff, and a huge list of vacancies. This was true even before the pandemic hit, which has considerably exacerbated the issue.
On 11 March NHS SOS, a coalition of campaigns to save the NHS, organised a march through central London. A few thousand people attended, including representatives from trade unions, trade councils, and local NHS campaigns. Holly Johnston, a nurse, NHS Workers Say No and Socialist Party member, spoke from the platform and said: “Minimal staffing isn’t met when we’re not on strike, yet the government wants to push through minimum levels [anti-strike] legislation, and we must reject this… We know that if we all strike together we can force the Tories out”
Demonstrations such as this show the support for saving our NHS, and opposition to privatisation and the selling off of our great public institution. We need a fully funded NHS that is free at the point of use, that properly pays and supports its staff, is publicly owned and with democratic oversight from health unions and patient groups.
