‘We have to take action at Whipps Cross Hospital against cuts and closure,’ consultant surgeon Mrs Anna Athow told a packed public meeting in Walthamstow, northeast London on Thursday night.
Speaking to applause from the floor of the Keep Our NHS Public over 400-strong gathering, Mrs Athow called for national strike action to defend district general hospitals and the NHS.
She told the meeting: ‘I am a consultant surgeon at North Middlesex Hospital and a member of the BMA consultants and specialists committee, here speaking in a personal capacity.
‘Exactly the same thing is happening to our next door hospital, Chase Farm, as is happening to you.
The NHS is a political question and it is a national political question.
‘The reason why Whipps Cross Hospital has to be closed is because the government don’t want an NHS hospital that is publicly funded and publicly provided.
‘Blair is carrying on the Tory policy and is determined to privatise the NHS . He said he is staying in office to “see through the NHS reforms”.
‘In September, Patricia Hewitt said that there would be no limit on the privatisation of the provision of clinical services.
‘In July the government advertised to put out all PCT commissioning to tender, proposing to hand over £60bn of NHS money to private companies to commission for themselves.
‘David Nicholson, the new chief executive of the NHS has demanded the reconfiguration of 60 District General Hospitals (DGHs), meaning downgrading or closing them.
‘Now they are using massive funding cuts to cripple NHS hospitals. And these are cuts not deficits. There were no deficits in the NHS before the May 2005 general election.
‘And what are they proposing to replace the DGHs with? – Community Care.
‘There is no community care! Where have we heard that before?
‘The Tories closed down all the asylums and left mental health patients with nowhere to go and a lot ended up in prison.
‘Labour want to replace hospitals with polyclinics, provided by large healthcare corporations, with private enterprise primary care centres and “care in your own home.” The elderly are to be left in their own home.
Addressing the pensioners in the audience, she added: ‘They are going to leave you at home to die. That is why the first wards to close are the geriatric wards.’
She continued: ‘This campaign today is great. And we saw yesterday at Westminster the march and all the campaigners from all over the country and it was a great start.
‘For the first time all the NHS unions united in NHS Together and organised the lobby of parliament.
‘But it is only a start, it is not enough. The unions have to organise action. It is not good enough just to talk and we saw the way that the NHS Logistics workers were sold out.
‘The first major NHS organisation was handed over to the German company DHL and the next day UNISON just abandoned its members.
‘We need the local campaigns to come together with national industrial action by the unions.
‘If it is a choice between the NHS and Mr Blair of Mr Brown and the NHS, we know who we would choose,’ she said to applause.
‘Blair has to go.
‘We need to take action at Whipps Cross to stop cuts and any closure and we need national strike action to defend our NHS and all District General Hospitals, she concluded to further applause.
Addressing the meeting, Whipps Cross consultant radiologist Indira Mootoosamy, chair of the BMA local negotiating group, said: ‘Since 1903 at Whipps Cross, we have been serving the people of Waltham Forest.
‘We are a good clinical hospital. We don’t get a lot of money but the hospital has good doctors, good nurses and good paramedics.
‘People want to come to work at Whipps Cross.
‘You raised £500,000 to buy a new CT scanner for the hospital.
‘We are a centre of excellence and we have wonderful specialist services.
‘We are also a very good academic centre with a reputation all round the world.
‘We do research and teach.
‘We are also in the forefront of modern technology.
‘We work in teams. The proposal to downsize Whips Cross – into either only an Accident and Emergency with no non-emergency services, or just a general hospital with no emergency services – would be tragic.
‘Young doctors and nurses won’t stay at Whipps Cross if it is downgraded.
‘That will be a great blow to the community.
‘A new plate glass centre doesn’t make a good hospital.
‘Please lobby your MPs and keep a very good hospital with specialist services open.’
Dot Gibson of the National Pensioners Convention told the meeting: ‘The majority of National Pensioners Convention were here when the NHS came into being in 1948 and are determined to defend the NHS.’
Charlotte Monro, Whipps Cross UNISON told the meeting: ‘We have seen cuts in staff.
‘Private sector involvement in the NHS is government strategy.
‘It is incompatible with the ethos of the NHS.’
