THE message from the government over the proposed dissolving of the South London Healthcare Trust and the closure of its major hospitals is that the NHS is to be bankrupted and closed to defend the interests of the banks and their PFI robbery schemes.
South London Healthcare, a merger of three hospital trusts, had a £69m debt at the start of the financial year.
The trust amalgamated the Princess Royal University Hospital in Orpington, Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup, and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich in 2009. This included the huge PFI debt, (involving an annual payment of £51 million as a consequence of the £2.5bn PFI deal for the construction of the Orpington and Woolwich buildings).
Behind the move to dissolve and close the trust is Health Secretary Andrew Lansley.
In a letter to the trust, Lansley said: ‘I recognise that South London Healthcare NHS Trust faces deep and long-standing challenges, some of which are not of its own making.
‘Nonetheless, there must be a point when these problems, however they have arisen, are tackled. I believe we are almost at this point.’
Ministers are considering a ‘rescue deal’ for the trust which will involve the taxpayer paying the banks by keeping to the terms of the £2.5bn PFI deal, while the trust is taken over by a privately run teaching hospital which will balance the books by shutting down A&Es and other specialist departments, shutting down one or more of the hospitals and substituting ‘urgent care units’ for them.
Central to any such plan will be the sacking of large numbers of nurses, doctors and other hospital workers.
Providing emergency funding is ‘not an option’ because it would send out a message that ministers are ready to bail out hospitals that get into difficulties, instead of closing them, is the coalition line.
The process now faced by the trust – known as an unsustainable providers regime – was established under the last Labour government as a last resort, only for the Tories to use when they came to office.
In fact, up to 22 NHS trusts are facing serious financial difficulties because of expensive PFI schemes, with six thought to have taken on projects viewed by ministers as ‘unsustainable’, so there is much scope for an avalanche of cuts, closures and mass sackings.
Professor Chris Ham, chief executive of the Kings Fund – a leading health think-tank – said the move to dissolve the South London Healthcare Trust is a sign of things to come.
The reality is that the crisis of capitalism and the policy of the coalition government, that only the banks and their PFI schemes are untouchable, is heralding the mass closure of NHS hospitals and of A&E and Paediatric units all over the country.
In London closure has been decided on at Chase Farm, and is being organised at the Ealing, Central Middlesex, Charing Cross and Hammersmith hospitals, as well as at St Helier hospital and South`London Healthcare, for starters.
Outside London it is the same story, the planned destruction of the NHS to save capitalism.
Hospital workers, their trade unions, the TUC and the working class as a whole, must follow the example of workers at Chase Farm. They have established a Council of Action and a daily picket of the hospital and are going to occupy it to stop it being closed, and to keep it running. They are urging all local trade unions to take part and support such action.
This must be done at every threatened hospital.
As well, the trade unions and the TUC must declare that they will oppose the closure of District General Hospitals with a general strike to bring down the coalition and bring in a workers government. This is the only way to defend the NHS.
