HEALTH workers and protesters marched through Birmingham on Saturday September 5 to protest at hreats to close three loca hospitals and axe 600 jobs.
The Save Our Services campaign is combating the effects of the long-term underfunding of Birmingham's health services, now compounded by the impact of the Tory government's new 'internal market.
South Birmingham health authority merged last year with Central Birmingham, only to discover that the combined cash shortfall was a massive £16 million - mostly from Central Birmingham.
It then announced draconian £7.5m savings plan which includes the closure of the Birmingham Accident, the Royal Orthopaedic and Woodlands hospitals, shedding 600 jobs over three years.
Buteven as protests gathered at these cuts, a further £2.6m shortfall has been revealed as South Birmingham is squeezed from both sides by the internal market system.
On the one side, neighbouring health authorities have pulled out of contracts worth £750,000 to buy orthopaedic treatment South Birmingham's directly managed hospitals.
On the other, South Birmingham as a purchasing health authority has been prevented from withdrawing from contracts worth £700,000 with The GMB workers at the Burnsall electroplating plant in Smethwick near Birmingham are taking their strike into its third month.
GMB general secretary John Edmonds has arranged for them to address both the TUC and Labour Party conferences.
A demonstration and labour movement rally in their support, hopefully involving the black community - the majority of the workers are Punjabi women - will be organised in the near future.
However the GMB has refused to call for a mass picket to confront scabs and close down the plant, or a boycott of the firm's products which go to mingham Hospital Trust.
To make matters even worse, the battered South Birmingham HA has been told that it must spend half its 'development budget this year - some £1.2mon repaying its old debts.
Health services in the city had already been thrown into turmoil by the controversial plans of the West Midlands Regional Health Authority to 'centralise' services through a wave of closures.
Now the Save Our Services campaign is calling for a public inquiry into government underfunding in Birmingham, and for the-sacking of West Midlands regional health chief Sir James Ackers who has masterminded the closure plans.
Three local MPs (Richard Burden, Lynn Jones and Estelle Morris) have already lent their support to the campaign, which is pressing for support from the City Council and the local labour movement.
• The SOS campaign can be contacted c/o Joint Union Offices, Oak Tree Lane, Selly Oak, Birmingham B29 6JD (Telephone 021-627-1627 ext 51503).
•JOHN LISTER of the NHS pressure group London Health Emergency will be speaking at a Birmingham meeting on the NHS crisis on September 15. The meeting will be at 7.30pm at the Queen's Arms, Essex St. GMB cl ohn Edmonds trom o labour movement bodies and the black community is pouring in.
For support messages, donations and speaker requests contact: Joe Quigley, Burnsall Strike Fund, GMB, Birmingham Rd., Halesowen B63 3HP. Telephone 021-550 4888 STRIKERS FROM Burnsall are Now accident services are a casualty of the cuts Meanwhile the desperate lack of