- Stop the destruction of the NHS in east London!
- No cuts at Whipps Cross, Barts, Newham and the Royal London
Socialist Party members in east London
A
major campaign to defend the NHS
is needed in east London, as it is in many parts of the country.
Privatisation and cuts threaten Barts Health Trust, which includes
Whipps Cross, Barts, Newham and the Royal London hospitals, forming
Britain's biggest NHS hospital trust.
Barts
has announced it is losing £2 million a week and plans severe cuts
at all the hospitals, especially at Whipps Cross, to avoid going into
administration. The Trust is making the biggest cuts in the NHS, with
£30 million cuts this year alone.
It
is saddled with a massive PFI (private finance initiative) deal to
rebuild the old Royal London. These cuts are due to the greed of
private companies that suck the lifeblood out of the NHS.
They
are also part of the Con-Dems' plans to sell off the NHS and make
massive cuts to all our public
services, to pay for a crisis caused by bankers and bosses.
Part
of the reason for the dogged drive to privatisation of the NHS, which
clearly opens the door to disaster, is in order to provide new and
profitable fields of investment for big business in this time of
ongoing economic crisis. Another hint is the over £10 million in
donations from companies profiting from private healthcare
that the Tories have received since 2001.
The
cuts must be fought! Why should working people across east
London - workers in and users of the NHS - pay such a terrible
price for the failures and the greed of the rich and big business?
Workers
at Whipps Cross hospital
have a proud record of standing up and fighting and winning.
Whipps
Cross Unison branch is calling a public meeting and demonstration,
and wants to work with the unions across all the hospitals
to build a united campaign.
Attack on the union
The
Waltham Forest Guardian reports that: "Charlotte Monro,
chairperson for Unison's Waltham Forest health branch at the
Leytonstone hospital, has been barred from representing members at a
Barts Health Trust staff consultative group pending an investigation
into her trade union activity."
It
also reported a Unison spokesperson saying that "Ms Monro is the
public service union's main link to the trust-wide body for the
branch at Whipps
Cross and barring her from attending disenfranchises members at
the hospital."
Hospital
workers and trade unionists who speak out to defend public services
must be defended - an attack on one key figure is an attack on the
whole union and the campaign.
The
whole community should get behind the campaign of the workforce in
the hospitals. The Unsion branch at the hospital has a very good
record of resisting attacks on members and of defending workers'
rights by organising determined campaigns, involving wide sections of
the workforce and including strike action.
Demonstrations
and other protests will all be important to bring together the
community, NHS users, and the workforce to fight the latest attacks
and to prepare for further threats. It is the workers in the hospital
and the union branch who ultimately have the power to take decisive
action, including strike action, which, with the community behind
them, could beat these cuts back.
Socialist
Party members, who work at Whipps Cross and are campaigning across
east London, are pointing to the need to link up this struggle with
all those against the cuts and to support the NSSN lobby of the TUC
to call a 24-hour general strike.
Several
hospital workers from the area are planning to stand as Trade
Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidates in next May's local
elections to provide a political voice that stands up for the NHS.
To get involved in the campaign and for details of meetings and protests, email paulamitchell@socialistparty.org.uk
No cuts in the health service
- Kick big business out of the NHS:
- Cancel privatisation and outsourcing contracts - reintegrate all health services back into the NHS
- All hospitals to be fully run and funded by the NHS
- Adequate staffing levels to provide good quality care for all patients. Decent pay and conditions for all staff
- Health service unions to organise industrial action to defend every part of the NHS
111 emergency
The
NHS non-emergency phone line - 111 - is in crisis after NHS Direct
decided to pull out of the contracts it holds (threatening the
service in a quarter of areas). Why the sudden cold feet? Well, it
has become 'financially unsustainable' to continue providing the
service on the current contract. Which might have something to do
with the fact that NHS Direct massively under-bid for the project,
promising it would only cost £7 a call. The actual figure has been
much higher, leaving NHS Direct in the red and the service worse than
shoddy. So much for the benefits of competition.
Out to tender
£5
billion worth of NHS contracts are going out to tender. These include
160 large-scale contracts and seven worth over £100 million. Private
sector vultures are swarming round the bidding process, in what has
been described as "an arms race", recognising this huge
outsourcing of public services as one of the only ways to make a
profit in the current economic situation. This tendering represents a
major shift in how the NHS operates and the likely devastating
effects will be seen over the coming years.
Serco scandal...again
One
company very interested in the latest round of privatisation
in the NHS is Serco. Serco already runs out-of-hours GP services in
Cornwall - which suffered massive failings and a "culture of
lying and cheating" within a couple of years of takeover - and
community health services in Suffolk. They have a hand on every area
of public services in fact - the prisons where they keep prisoners
locked up all day, the tagging where they overcharge the government
by millions. You'd think these success stories would be enough to put
a stop to it but Serco is now going after a £1 billion contract for
health services in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.
Needed: a strategy to stop the destruction of the NHS. A collection of articles from the Socialist
£2 including postage
Available from Socialist Books, PO Box 24697, London E11 1YD,
020
8988 8789 www.socialistbooks.org.uk
National Shop Stewards Network NHS bulletin number 3
Includes articles on Whipps Cross, Wales, Mid Staffs and building for a 24-hour general strike
See
shopstwards.net or email info@shopstewards.net
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