2,000 health workers and campaigners joined a lively demonstration against NHS cuts and closures in London on August 21.
Called by all three merging health COHSE, NALGO and NUPE under the UNISON banner, the day also saw lunch-time meetings and other indications of support from hospitals across the capital.
The march - which the unions regard as a springboard for further action at local level - went from the doomed Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital to the Department of Health.
The protest has been triggered by the wave of cuts and closures which is sweeping away vital beds and jobs in health authorities and Trusts throughout the capital.
Already well over 1,000 jobs have been axed, and hundreds of beds have closed. At the beginning of August, technicians' union MSF staged an angry 3-day strike against threatened job losses in Riverside health authority.
But the march also sounded a warning that much bigger cuts are looming, as the Tory government's Tomlinson inquiry prepares to unveil its plans for restructuring hospital services in London in line with the requirements of the 'internal market.
A detailed report researched for COHSE by London Health Emergency has warned that Tomlinson is likely to propose closures including three teaching hospitals - Charing Cross, St Thomas's and either the Middlesex or University College Hospital.
The Tories are being egged on by academics from the King's Fund, who suggest closing at least 15 hospitals. The media, too have parroted the Tory line that the capital (with 130,000 on Public support in the West Midlands waiting lists) has too many' hospital beds.
Unfortunately the same arguments are also held by Labour's leadership, who under Robin Cook and now David Blunkett appear to have made wholesale closures into a bipartisan policy.
300 Club - more fun than Sun bingo!
For just £5 a month you get the chance to win £50 in our monthly draw. in now to be sure of a chance to win. Because of our break over the summer, this month we have Rachel Newton from Manchester. Tim Davies from Birmingham receives second prize. =-Mybank…..... Bankaddress.. My full name...... My bank sorting code My account number... Myaddress.
lease pay to the Co-ope _ondon EC3V 3NI (sorting code 08-02-28) for the account o Socialist Outlook Supporters fund (account number 70186297) the sum of:
... dayof…... 1992 and thereafter every month until countermanded by me in writing. Signed. Date.. Please complete and return to Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU. Do not send directly to your bank.
resources for the capital's NHS has been further underlined by revelations of severe under- staffing of the London Ambulance Service, reducing even front-line accident and emergency work to little more than a skeleton service. There is little time left for the Labour and trade union movement to force Blunkett and John Smith to ditch their wretched line of capitulation to Tory cuts and closures in London. In the meantime it will be left up to the health unions and local campaig. ners to battle on alone in defence of London's health services. We give better odds than the football pools and we're a more deserving cause than Littlewoods! So get your standing order given away a spectacular double prize of £100 to our winner;
Yes, count me in!
Eve bank PLC 78/80 Cornhill, ...(inwords) .. infigures) ... (month) No. 27 12 Sept, 1992