NHS
cuts… closures… privatisation…
We’re fighting back!
Picture: NHS protesters from London’s Whipps Cross hospital
ALL OVER greater Manchester, NHS managers are using dishonest slogans
like "Making health better," "healthy futures" and
"best for health" to ram through a savage cuts programme.
Christian Bunke, Manchester
The Pennine Acute Trust wants to cut jobs (up to 1,500 in North
Manchester, Oldham, Bury and Rochdale) and services.
The Trust has a £21 million deficit. As is the case throughout the
country this crisis – the result of chronic under-funding and the
relentless drive to privatisation under both Tory and Labour governments
– is now being passed on to patients who need vital services.
Some of the proposed cuts are just absurd. Baby and maternity care is
under threat in Bury and Salford. In Wythenshawe, the premature baby
unit is to be down-scaled. Staff tell Socialist Party members that they
are outraged about it.
No wonder. In order to compensate for the beds slashed in Wythenshawe,
management say they will use helicopters to fly babies all across
greater Manchester to facilities in places like Oldham.
Local people are up in arms about this. While Socialist Party members
leafleted in Wythenshawe for a public meeting to mobilise against the
cuts, a group of young people took leaflets and window posters to
distribute to their families and friends. "Save the baby
unit," they shouted, as they marched off.
NHS managers are scared that their cuts agenda could face serious
opposition. Where there has been resistance, they have been forced to
back off. In Salford, plans to attack maternity services at Hope
Hospital have gone very quiet because local people were outraged about
this.
Cuts in Trafford were put on the back burner after a Socialist Party
campaign there two years ago. In Wythenshawe, managers abandoned plans
to shut the mental health unit because Socialist Party members led the
fight to keep it open.
It gives a glimpse of what is possible if people all across greater
Manchester unite to oppose all the cuts and demand a decent health
service accessible to everyone.
The demonstration on 24 June is a good first step to achieve this. Protests and demonstrations like this have happened across the country in recent months and weeks. It is high time for the health workers’ union UNISON to get into gear and organise a national demonstration against health cuts as demanded at UNISON health conference.
NHSfeature: Fight the cuts in community services
