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From The Socialist newspaper, 18 January 2017
'Black alert' NHS: demonstrate 4 March
NHS workers marching in Manchester, 4.10.15, photo Sarah Wrack (Click to enlarge)
'Jane Turner', Social care worker
The NHS is in crisis. In just one week of January, 23 hospital trusts declared 'black alert', meaning they were unable to guarantee patient safety.
This figure is increasing, and expected to rise further with the cold weather, which normally results in a spike in emergency admissions for broken limbs and breathing problems.
People are having long waits for ambulances as they are delayed for hours, waiting with patients in A&E car parks because emergency departments are full.
On New Year's Eve in Fareham, Hampshire, a woman in her 80s waited seven hours for an ambulance after falling. In Kent I saw reports of a woman waiting three hours for an ambulance lying face down in a car park after being hit by a car.
I work in social care, which is also vastly underfunded. Despite this there is pressure to divert available home care and nursing home beds to facilitate hospital discharges.
This leaves many vulnerable people who live in their own homes and so are 'not a priority' waiting for weeks or months on waiting lists. Inevitably many of them end up in hospital.
I find it frightening that NHS trusts are unable to guarantee patient safety. I find it shocking that the Red Cross, an organisation normally associated with international aid, has found it necessary to declare a "humanitarian crisis" in the fifth largest economy in the world.
So we need to support the national NHS demonstration on 4 March. We need to campaign to scrap the PFI debt, reverse the funding cuts, and bring all privatised services back in-house. We need to fight for the NHS with everything we have, because people are really suffering now.
Save our NHS demo
Saturday 4 March - 12noon, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9EZ
called by Health Campaigns Together
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The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.
The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.
The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.
- The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
- When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.
Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.
We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to donate to our Fighting Fund.
In The Socialist 18 January 2017:
What we think
Labour's civil war continues - build a mass workers' party
Tories torn in two on single market
Resist Trump
We can stop Trump's sexist agenda in its tracks
International socialist news and analysis
Mexico: Mass movement against "gasolinazo"
USA: Seattle activists win housebuilding programme
1917revolution.org website to launch
Socialist Party news and analysis
'Black alert' NHS: Demonstrate 4 March
Eight billionaires own as much as half humanity!
Pollution kills 600: fight for clean air!
Northern Ireland calls snap election: back Labour Alternative
Millwall FC move threat: Defend the Den - 'wall not Renewal
Workplace news and analysis
Billions in profit for Tesco, cuts and job losses for workers
Liverpool dockers and drivers protest "appalling lack of facilities"
Manchester: BA cabin crew pay strike
London: Taxi drivers gridlock City of London
Southern Rail strike continues
PCS union national executive elections
Socialist Party reports and campaigns
The Socialist: read it, write it, sell it
Protesters surround Sheffield's cutting council
Fracking protest in Sherwood Forest
Residents protest at plans to close nine community centres
Anger at south east Kent Momentum meeting
Socialist Party national committee agrees document for congress
Socialist readers' comments and reviews
Why I joined the Socialist Party
Theatre review: high art and savage poverty in Bootle
John Berger: remarkable art of a contradictory socialist
Socialist artists invite others to exhibit work
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