NHS feature: Bring the campaigns together

NHS feature: Bring the campaigns together

EVERY WEEK the socialist receives reports of campaigns to stop the
closure or privatisation of NHS facilities, usually threatened because
of financial ‘deficits’. Yet the government boasts that spending on the
NHS has increased.

Alison Hill

But the truth is that Labour has never been prepared to spend enough
to repair the damage the Tories did to the NHS. And they have made the
situation worse by opening up the NHS to profiteering by the private
sector much more blatantly than the Tories ever did.

The reintroduction of the internal market has had the effect of
hospitals being paid according to how busy they are, based on average
hospital costs. But if your hospital isn’t average – it builds up a
‘deficit’.

Private-sector bidders are being sought for NHS contracts worth £3
billion – including taking over new NHS hospitals built under the
expensive (but highly profitable) PFI scheme. And the rules to stop
private companies poaching NHS stuff are being relaxed.

The reorganisation of the primary care trusts – the ‘purchasers’ in
the internal market – threatens services like district nursing, family
planning and much of the health service which currently takes place
outside hospitals. Health Minister Patricia Hewitt had to apologise for
the way this is being rushed through but she will undoubtedly want to
come back later to push through privatisations of these services.

All this points to the urgent need to co-ordinate the campaigns, to
build for a national demonstration and national strike action to defend
the NHS.


Socialist Party says:

  • End privatisation. Bring all health care into one nationally planned
    and properly financed, publicly owned service which is free at the point
    of use.
  • Nationalise the pharmaceutical industry, the pharmacy chains and
    medical supply industry and integrate them into a democratically
    controlled NHS.
  • Abandon the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). No more profiteering by
    building companies and banks.
  • Fund new hospital building programmes with public money, using direct
    labour.
  • A minimum of £8 an hour and a 35-hour week for all health workers.
  • Fight all cuts in the NHS. No to redundancies.
  • Unite the many campaigns already in existence to defend the NHS. For
    a national demonstration to build support for industrial action.

Huddersfield

"Our NHS is not for sale"

THE ROOM we’d booked for our ‘Save our NHS’ meeting in Huddersfield
was only just big enough as over 120 people crammed in. They had come
out on a bitter winter night to show their opposition to proposals to
dramatically reduce NHS provision to the population of Huddersfield
within their own town.

Midwife and RCM steward, Carolyn Saville, gave clear examples of how
women and babies would be put at risk if plans went ahead. She was angry
at the way midwives have been treated by trust bosses who have no
medical qualifications.

Barbara Farrand, local pensioner and activist, had collected over
2,300 signatures and had the audience in stitches with a poem by a
member of the hospitals staff, condemning the ‘management’.

Adrian O’Malley told how Wakefield UNISON had campaigned to fight the
closure of their maternity unit and are now facing more privatisation,
cuts and centralising of services in their area. Finally, local GP
Jackie Grunsell argued that this is not a ‘done deal’ if people get
organised and fight to save services.

Many in the meeting spoke of how they’d raised money for the Special
Care Baby Unit and Breast Cancer Care services in the past, and were not
prepared to see them taken away. They were angry at what they saw as a
lack of action by local politicians.

41 ambulance station staff and paramedics had signed a declaration
stating "We are opposed to any such move as we feel the level of cover
of emergency service at the moment is inadequate, and would be further
stretched, resulting in even more reduced levels of cover in rural
areas".

Volunteers came forward to be on the campaign’s organising committee
and every one took away supplies of petition sheets and leaflets for
their own areas. The local press gave good coverage to the meeting as
well as increasing the pressure on councillors to organise a referendum
on the issue.

Most importantly people left the meeting feeling we can win. The
message to the trust board is: "It’s our NHS, and it’s not for sale!"

The meeting voted unanimously to organise a demonstration on Saturday
10 December, which will start at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary at 11am,
and march to the town centre for a rally.


Lincoln

Marching to save frontline services

LAST SATURDAY, 26 November, around 100 people braved the cold to
demonstrate against cuts in NHS services across Lincolnshire. Local
Primary Care Trusts across the county have been trying to plug an £8
million budget deficit by closing hospital wards and cutting frontline
services.

Marc Glasscoe

Demonstrations have already been held in Grantham and Skegness and
the unions now propose a series of days of action to push for funding to
be available for local health services. One campaigner told me: "We
marched last week against the closure of Scarborough Ward in Skegness.
It’s unbelievable what they’re trying to do".

Socialist Party members have been campaigning on the issue all summer
and were at the demonstration, petitioning, selling papers and handing
out leaflets pointing out the need for a proper socialist programme for
the NHS, renationalised under democratic workers’ control and with
proper funding and decent pay.

The local right-wing press carried a front-page article about
hospital cleanliness without mentioning how privatisation and market
forces was driving down standards in pursuit of profit. Job cuts, poorer
services and increased infection are all symptoms of this neo-liberal
economic disease.

Health service cuts affect everybody. The unions need to make this
demonstration the start of a mass campaign involving health workers,
other unions, local activists and local people.


Kendal

Health bosses attack ‘Cinderella services’

NURSES, HEALTH professionals, patients and the Socialist Party have
launched a campaign to prevent ward closures at Westmorland General
Hospital in Kendal.

Andrew Billson-Page, hospital worker and Kendal Socialist Party

After years of cuts in services, Morecambe Bay Primary Care Trust
chiefs still put financial pragmatism before patients and plan to axe an
elderly ward – and the only mental health ward in the area.

The closures would mean patients travelling to Lancaster or Barrow to
receive treatment – this angers many local people who fought hard for
many years to gain local access for mental health services.
Unfortunately the health bosses prefer to centralise all psychiatric
services in a run-down, inadequate Victorian asylum in Lancaster.

Many local people are furious that the unglamorous but vital
"Cinderella" services such as elderly care and mental health have been
targeted. One man, whose relatives had been patients in the affected
wards, praised the service his family had received and said hospital
managers should be ashamed of the proposals and should resign.

Our campaign – named "NHS SOS" – has gained a lot of support already
and continues to gain momentum. The Socialist Party’s new branch in
Lancaster/Kendal has been instrumental in gaining several hundred
signatures and is considering organising a public demonstration in
January. Petitions have been sent to every GP surgery in the area in
addition to circulating throughout the hospital.

NHS SOS has called a public meeting in Kendal on 6 December where we
will put forward both our objections and our proposals for the NHS’s
future.

  • SOS campaign meeting – Tues 6 December, 7pm, Shakespeare Centre,
    Highgate, Kendal
  • Socialist Party public meeting – "Campaigning for a new workers’
    party", Wednesday 14 December, 7.30pm, Old Fleece pub (upstairs), Kendal
    town centre.