Horror Story in North East bankruptcy of reformism.
are the very architects of the cuts.
Throughout the NHS there is a steadily unfolding picture of closures, cancellation of hospital building programmes, cut-backs in whole areas of health care and research, and extended waiting lists. The increasing use of prescription charges and the support by organisations like the British Medical Association for the extension of the fee-paying system is a direct challenge to the idea of a free health service for the working class.
Meanwhile the private sector continues to flourish, posing the threat of a two-tier health system and draining away trained workers from The attacks on the NHS are the concern of all the working class. Health care is an essential part of the the standard of living of the working working class and constitutes a part of its real wages. Furthermore it affects the health and well-being of the entire working class.
The Conference called by the Medical Committee Against Private Practice for 11 October under the title Fight The Cuts in the NHS' must therefore have as its first task the aim of establishing the maximum unity inside the workers movement in order to fight the cuts. But that unity has to be based around an agreed programme that does not simply call for the defence of what is an inadequate health service subordinated to the needs of capitalism. It has to fight for the transformation of the health service, and show how that can only be achieved! by mobilising the working class and its allies around an anti-capitalist programme.
The following demands can play The terrible decline in the National Health Service exposes the absolute This "great gain' of social democracy can no longer be defended by its own originators. In fact it is the Labour leadership who are not only presiding over the deterioration of the NHS but opment Project, and the Bronx SSC.
into the NHS, to draw up a programme to transform the health service into one based on the needs of and responsible to the working class * For general working class solidarity with the struggles of all health workers - except ing part-time for private practice.
Such a programme can lay the basis for uniting the broad workers' movement in action. pickets of private hospitals and solidarity action with health workers struggles such as the supportive strike action recentiy by minersand dockers. Campaigns are needed to black private hospitals, involving the whole trade union movement in a refusal to supplv labour and services. Occupations should be held against closures, cut backs and in support of demands for free aborThese can be used as a focus to mobilise not only health workers but other people in the community, leading to the establishment of broad based local action committees Bob Pennington Last week the first registration forms for the CAPP Conference were circulated. MCAPP report delegates have been elected from Sheffield Brightside Labour Party, North London district council of the National Union of Railwayworkers, Brent Trades Council, Norwich Trades Council, the South West Region of the TUC, Ealing AUEW, and the Bronx Engineering Shop Stewards Committee at Stowbridge.
New sponsors include Brent Working Women's Charter, North West London NAC, National Action Group of Occupational Therapists, Oxford NAC, NUPE branch at University College Hospital, North Tyneside DevelMCAPP also tell us that in London they are organising a series of lunchtime meetings on building sites as well as sending out speakers to trade union branches, local Labour Parties and branches of the LPYS. Readers should make sure that their organisations elect delegates to the 11 October Conference and where possible arrange for an MCAPP speaker.
those workmus nears pangs of conscience.
castle Sunday Sun.
increase in North Tyneside.
Organised by The Labour Party has always used the National Health Service. as a shining example of its devotion to socialism. The NHS is also supposed to prove that socialism via Parliament is possible - in fact the only possible way. However, the present Labour Government is managing to cut expenditure on the social services drastically without any ministers suffering any noticeable The appalling state of the NHS in the North East has just been revealed in a report in the 24 August edition of the NewThe report shows:
30,735 waiting for treatment in the North at the end of May - a 15 per cent increase over a year. * In Cumbria general surgery waiting up by 635 to 1,900. * In Cleveland general surgery waiting up by a third, and figures nearly doubled in Gateshead and North Tyneside. * Orthopaedics waiting in Newcastle up by 188 to 718, with a 76 per cent rise in South Tyneside and nearly 50 per cent * Gynaecology waiting lists more than double normal waiting times - more than a year in North and South Tyneside.
However these horrifying figures still do not give the full picture. They do not include the very large numbers waiting for an appointment with a consultant before possible ad mission to hospital. The real state of affairs was revealed by Dr. James for a hospital bed Labour movement conference on the fight against the cuts in the NHS City University London. October 11 Chaired by Jack Collins speakers include -Audrey Wise MP and health workers:
Medical Committee Against Private Practice 55 Bridge Lane London NW I| Wing class west end of Newcastle.
MCAPP conference in London on 11 October.
Geoff Ryan Bringan, a member of the Regional Health Authority. He claims: 'We have cases in the region where patients are waiting more than a year before they get an appointment with a con sultant. Then they could wait another year for treatment In contrast the Newcastle Labour controlled council has been less than stingy in doling out cash for its prestige projects to private enterprise. The new Civic Centre cost £6 mil lion, the Eldon Square shopping centre has so far cost at least £40 million - to name just two of the many examples.
On Friday 15 August it was announced that tne General Hospital, the second largest in the city, is to be closed. It is to be replaced by a new hospital at Freeman Road. Although the General is not supposed to be closed for several years, it will mean that no hospital will be left in the predominantly workThe situation in the North East is by no means an excep tion. And the Healey measures mean that waiting lists will get still longer, and yet more people will die before they are even seen by a specialist, let alone treated. This appalling situation shows the urgency for the working class to work out a plan to defend the NHS against any attacks. At the moment this means getting the widest possible delegations to the