The Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital (EGA), London's last remaining specialist hospital for women, is facing a new fight for survival.
Management want to close Aldrich Blake Ward, with the oss of 11 nurses and suppor staff - to save just £60,000 b April.
This new cutback would reduce the hospital to just 28 in-patient beds and 8 day care beds, and restrict the numbers of women who can choose the special type of care offered by a women's hospital.
Now some managers in Bloomsbury and Islington health authority are keen to close the EGA altogether, and sell off its prime site near Eus ton station.
Fighting for its life The threat is not new: for. over 15 years the EGA has been fighting for its life against repeated closure threats. For over three years from 1975 the hospital was 'occupied' by staff who with tremendous support from local trade unions and the community kept it open and treating patients in the first long-running hospital 'work-in'.
This successful fight made the EGA a household name among those defending the NHS against cuts and closures, and in the women's move ment. The hospital was saved and upgraded, and despite recent cuts which forced the introduction of some male doctors, it still offers a very special type of care and sup port for women all over London and elsewhere.
Assets stripped
Management admit that the EGA is an early casualty of the Tory government's unpopular NHS reforms, which have deterred doctors from referring women to hospitals outside their local districts. And asset-stripping local health chiefs are moving in for the kill.
They were defeated in the 1970s, and they can be defeated пого.
Already staff at the EGA, members of COHSE and NUPE, are taking the lead, balloting for strike action to fight these cuts: but they need sup port in building a broad campaign to save the EGA, and beat back these Tory cuts.
Contart the unions at the hospital c/o Pat Taylor (COHSE) or Helen Cotter (NUPE) (071387-2501). Leaflets are available from COHSE, 112, Greyhound Lane, London SW16. Domestic staff employed by contractors RCO at the