Save Lewisham Hospital March & Rally – Saturday 26 January 2013
On Saturday twenty sixth January 2013 an estimated 25,000 individuals marched by Lewisham to avoid wasting their hospital from closure and to guard the NHS, exhibiting south London united in opposition to the closure on pure monetary grounds of its extremely profitable and far wanted A&E and maternity departments.
Now the entire NHS is dealing with a disaster, and an analogous united response throughout the nation is required to reserve it. It turns into clearer and clearer that this disaster has been intentionally engineered so as to destroy our well being service and hand it over to non-public suppliers, significantly the US well being giants.
Two years in the past, US medical health insurance big Centene Company took over 49 NHS GP surgical procedures and practices. Now as Jeremy Corbyn posted a few days in the past on Fb, “US medical health insurance big, Centene, is the only largest supplier of NHS main care in England. Privatisation is the reason for — not the answer to — the NHS disaster. Cease losing cash on personal contracts and begin investing in a fully-public NHS as a substitute.“
Sadly each Tory and Labour events have taken half within the transfer in the direction of privatisation of the NHS, although Tories have been extra open of their help of such modifications as suggesting the introduction of costs to see a physician. However each events have launched modifications which have introduced personal corporations into offering NHS companies, have taken giant donations from personal well being corporations, and have main members who revenue from them.
It was beneath Labour that the NHS took on poorly thought out Non-public Finance Initiative contracts which have landed many native well being trusts with big debt repayments, lots of which prolong to the center of the century, and it was these which led to the disaster in Lewisham.
The PFI contracts have been negotiated by civil servants and have been and are a bonanza for personal corporations. Below them we pay completely ridiculous costs for easy jobs – comparable to Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals Belief paying £8,450 to put in a dishwasher as a result of they’re locked into upkeep contracts. Altering a light-weight bulb can value a few hundred kilos.
Lewisham Hospital wasn’t straight affected by PFI, but it surely was in 2009 put into the South London Hospitals Belief, which had two hospitals at Orpington and Woolwich whose PFI contracts saddled the belief with money owed of over £60 million a 12 months till 2032.
Lewisham Hospital was profitable each medically and financially, however Well being Secretary Andrew Lansley appointed a particular administrator to the belief with a remit to drastically lower the trusts prices. And Matthew Kershaw determined to take action by closing the extremely profitable and far wanted A&E and maternity departments at Lewisham.
It was a call that made no sense. There wasn’t the spare capability at different hospitals to deal with these not in a position to get therapy at Lewisham – the system was truly working within the different path, with these different hospitals having to ship sufferers to Lewisham.
Financially it made no sense – the sufferers would nonetheless require therapy and this could value extra elsewhere. The small annual financial savings the closure would give could be greater than offset by will increase in prices elsewhere – although a few of these may be in different trusts.
The proposal generated an unbelievable quantity of native opposition, with the marketing campaign to avoid wasting the hospital supported by all native MPs and policitician each within the space and throughout south London. Group teams and organisations all got here collectively to avoid wasting the hospital – Millwall soccer membership even modified their weekend fixture to Friday night time so the crew and supporters may be part of the march.
As I wrote again in 2013, “The combat to avoid wasting Lewisham Hospital isn’t only a native subject, however very a lot a nationwide one, with the availability of medical companies that type the bedrock of the NHS beneath assault. If the federal government can shut down companies at Lewisham, no different profitable hospital within the UK is secure of their arms.”
Nurses and ambulance employees are actually hanging not only for a greater deal for themselves, however for the way forward for the NHS, which the Tories have intentionally run down with drastic underfunding and a deliberate failure to coach and recruit employees. Maybe their most evident motion was the removing of the bursary for nurse coaching, however as properly there was the persevering with lower in actual salaries with under inflation wage rises over time. Along with the failure to maintain European employees on this nation after Brexit and the impression of Covid the outcomes have been disastrous – aside from these personal corporations offering company nurses and medical doctors, usually at horrific value to the NHS.
If the NHS is to be saved it would want the form of public mobilisation that saved Lewisham Hospital, with the individuals as a complete getting behind the nurses and medical doctors and others who’re combating to reserve it. We have to combat the insurance policies and greed of the Tories and of Labour and of the billionaire press to protect the NHS as a nationwide service free on the level of use and organised for the nationwide good somewhat than for revenue.
Extra footage at Save Lewisham Hospital
Tags: A&E, ambulance employees, Andrew Lansley, Brexit, Centene, Centene Company, group teams, Covid, debt repayments, egency employees, way forward for the NHS, Well being Secretary, Lewisham, Lewisham hospital, London, low wage rises, march, Maternity, Matthew Kershaw, Millwall, NHS, NHS privatisation, nurses, nursing bursareies, peter Marshall, PFI, main care, personal well being corporations, privatisation, protest, Save Lewisham Hospital, save the NHS, SLHT, South London Hospitals Belief, particular administrator, employees shortages, strikes, US medical health insurance
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