The Socialist 18 January 2017

Resist Trump

Labour's civil war continues - build a mass workers' party

Tories torn in two on single market

Resist Trump

Inaugurate the resistance

We can stop Trump's sexist agenda in its tracks

Mexico: Mass movement against "gasolinazo"

USA: Seattle activists win housebuilding programme

1917revolution.org website to launch

'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

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

Unite the Union elections

PCS union national executive elections

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

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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'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.