IT'S AUTUMN, and NHS management all over the country are doing their sums, totting up the cuts they must make now to balance their books by next April.
Our NHS is under sustained, relentless attack. A combination of under-funding and the anarchy of the new 'internal market' is leaving services at risk.
In London, the Tomlinson report has called for the closure of seven inner-London hospitals treating up to 200,000 in-patients a year - and the axing of 20,000 NHS jobs. More than half of these jobs will be nurses; over 70 percent will be women. A majority are likely to be black. While they lose their jobs, waiting lists could quickly double.
These are not the only NHS jobs at risk. Elsewhere in the capital and in other towns, NHS jobs and services are being cut back.
But stati, patients and pubic are aireadt Aghting back. In Larder sere has ber a hege repore s de campaign to stop the ciosures. iStt p5 Printed by incor -es Ese trage te i dis ed ay dolrare Ltd, PO Box 1109. London NA ZUU LONDON The fight is a nation-wide battle. In the small market town of Banbury a massive 3,500-strong torchlit demonstration surged through the streets in protest at planned ward closures and 35 redundancies at the Horton General Hospital.
Protesters at a huge over-flow rally outside the Town Hall heard trade union and campaign speakers warn that the future of the hospital is in doubt as a result of the Tory market reforms, since its main 'purchasers', Oxford and Northampton health authorities, will both lose money next year.
Oxford health chiefs are already discussing plans to withdraw contracts for specialist services, leaving the Horton (which 'opts out next April) struggling for survival.
Health workers all over the country must prepare to link up with their own local communities, the miners and other struggles: now is the time to take on this wrteched Tory government.
The fight is on to defend our NHS.!