Build for the demo and lobby on 1 November
RCN and Unison members protesting outside parliament
HEALTH CUTS are happening all over the country. According to NHS
chief executive David Nicholson, they "will not hurt". But they are
hurting. Campaigners outside Guys and St Thomas’s, the prestigious
London teaching hospital, met angry staff who told them that the staff
dentistry department had been closed just this Friday.
Lois Austin
Throughout the NHS it’s the same story – secret ward and bed closures
that the patients and community are not supposed to know about. These
are cuts that not only hurt now but will mean a much worse health
service in the long term.
What’s behind these cuts and closures? The relentless drive towards
the market. Market ‘reforms’ like ‘payment by results’ and ‘choose and
book’ mean changes to the way that hospitals and Primary Care Trusts are
funded. They will mean that hospital trusts not in deficit at the moment
will be in the red by the end of the year.
New Labour want a ‘leaner, fitter’ NHS for the private healthcare
companies circling, ready to take over profitable services.
But the campaign to resist the hammer blows of cuts and privatisation
is gathering support. 140 medical secretaries and personal assistants
working in the Barking and Havering and Redbridge hospital trust will
strike on 5 October against the outsourcing of their work, leading to
90-plus redundancies.
Last Saturday, demonstrations took place in Banbury, Pontefract and
Epsom. A national focus for these campaigns is beginning to coalesce
around the TUC lobby of parliament on 1 November.
A feeder march, to demonstrate our anger and determination to fight
back, will march from the Southbank, across Westminster bridge, to join
the lobby of Parliament.
A growing number of local organisations and leading anti-cuts
campaigners are sponsoring this march.
Leicester, Bristol and Brighton Keep Our NHS Public (KONHSP) are now
sponsoring it, along with the Coventry NHS SOS campaign. A number of
trade union health branches have also sponsored the march and booked
transport.
Let’s build a mass turnout on 1 November. Our NHS is not for sale!
- New sponsors for the march: Brighton KONHSP, Coventry NHS SOS,
Leicester KONHSP, Waltham Forest KONHSP, Bristol KONHSP, Jon Smith,
GMB branch secretary at Sheffield’s Children’s Hospital, Dave Gorton,
branch co-ordinater Derbyshire County UNISON, Tees and North East
Yorkshire UNISON health branch, Greater London Pensioners’ Association - Coming demonstrations include: Southampton, Huntingdon and
Huddersfield (7 October) and Oxford (14 October).
