IN THE UK at the moment there are dozens of District General Hospitals – some of the best in the world – set for closure, with the Coalition abusing them using its ‘black propaganda’ that they are failing, harming people’s health and not curing them.
Hunt and Cameron weep crocodile tears about the state of the NHS – not mentioning that they are cutting it by £20bn – and that they have already sacked tens of thousands of nurses, doctors and health workers, so that the existing staff are rushed off their feet. Further, they are using the Health and Social Care Act to hand Commissioners the entire NHS budget so that they can distribute it to the private medical industry, in the form of sweetheart contracts.
At the same time, up and down the country tens of thousands of NHS workers are being sacked and told to reapply for their jobs at a lesser rate of pay, and with the pool of jobs cut by half. The standard of care, jobs, wages and pensions are under attack all over the NHS.
The latest government plan is to call A&Es ‘999 Emergency Departments’, that will not be open to the public but will be available for disasters. This will allow them to close the vast majority of A&Es.
The NHS is now a battleground, with a bankrupt ruling class, represented by its political frontmen, which believes that the banks and bosses must be propped up at the cost of hundreds of billions, and that the working class and the middle class must pay for it through the destruction of the NHS and the Welfare State.
In fact, the Tory-led coalition are attacking both the workers at home and workers all over the world. Since the 2008 banking crash it has been war after war against the working class at home and war after war to re-enslave the ex-colonial peoples, especially when their lands contain oil.
The whole world is being made to pay for saving the bankrupt capitalist system and its ruling classes.
In the face of this onslaught, the Labour Party says that it will have similar policies to the Tories if they are elected, and the trade union leaders refuse to use the power of the trade unions to stop hospital closures and the onslaught on the Welfare State by bringing down the government.
At Chase Farm, the union leaders have accepted the closure of four wards and are doing nothing about the hundreds of admin workers that have been made to reapply for their jobs, with the understanding that 208 of them will be sacked.
The union leaders have not taken a single action to fight the plan to close Chase Farm. They have simply retreated to Barnet, and left Chase Farm to its fate!
Workers, however, are now very angry at what has happened and are demanding action.
Action must be taken to stop the hospital closures, defend the Welfare State and bring down the Coalition.
Hospitals facing closure must be occupied and such occupations must be supported by the trade unions. Councils of Actions must be set up to organise the occupations and to also organise a general strike to bring down the Coalition and replace it with a workers government and socialism. This is the only way forward.
The NHS and the Welfare State must be defended. What the older generations have won cannot be surrendered.
Forward to occupations. Forward to the general strike. Bring down the Coalition and bring in a workers government and socialism!