OVER 200 patients, health professionals, union members and campaigners marched through east London yesterday against cuts to GP surgeries which threaten the closure of 22 of them and 98 practices nationally.
The march started at St Katherine’s Dock practice which is one of those threatened with closure.
Marchers shouted ‘Whose GP’s surgeries, Our GP surgeries’, and ‘Jeremy Hunt cuts, no way – NHS here to stay’.
They marched through east London past surgery after surgery, picking up people along the way, swelling the march.
The surgeries that they passed included Wapping Green, City Wellbeing, Albion, HealthE1, Brayford Square, Jubilee Street, Newbury Close, Crisp Street, St Andrews, Stroudbury and Bromley-by-Bow.
Doctor Patel, from the threatened St Katherine’s Dock surgery, said: ‘This practice has been here for 25 years.
‘I have been here for ten and I’m proud of the continuation of our care so that we have had only two doctors in those 25 years. That’s what patients want – a named GP and someone they can rely on and someone they know.
‘Closing 98 GP surgeries will destabilise the entire NHS, it will have a knock-on affect on A&Es, and patients will have to come to A&Es because there will be no GPs for them to see.
‘As a last resort, GPs will have to come out on strike, but they will have to do so avoiding jeopardising patient care.’
Patient Marian Musa said: ‘I’ve used St Katherine’s Dock for 25 years, it’s my surgery.
Rudi Affolter, a Unison member and librarian who works at London Metropolitan University, said: ‘I have travelled from Crawley to demonstrate because it is so important.
‘The closure of one surgery would be too much, so the closure of 98 across the country is absolutely scandalous. This government obviously wants to destroy Nye Bevan’s legacy and privatise the NHS.
‘This government would like to move to the American model where you have to have insurance.
‘If it comes to it, there may well have to be strike action where everyone comes out together in a general strike to defend the NHS, and stop the closure of surgeries.’
