ONE-HUNDRED-AND-FIFTY workers and youth attended the West London Council of Action/All Trades Unions Alliance Conference on Sunday, which was called to save Ealing Hospital and defend the NHS.
The conference, in the Dominion Centre in Southall, west London, was attended by health workers from Ealing Hospital and other trade union members from the area and from far afield, as well as members of the local community who are determined to stop the closure of their much needed hospital.
The Conference Resolution expressed ‘great concern at the closure of the Maternity Department at Ealing Hospital and now the imminent closure of the Paediatrics and then the A&E’. It pledged support to the junior doctors who are balloting for strike action against the imposition of 90 hour shifts and 30% wage cuts. It demanded that the trade union leaders ‘get up off their knees and organise general strike action to bring this government down. If they still refuse to do this, then every union leader that will not fight must be replaced’.
Moving the resolution, Bill Rogers, Chair of the Chingford Aslef branch, said: ‘We are deeply concerned about the closures at Ealing and we have to save Ealing Hospital. But the NHS onslaught is not just happening to Ealing, it’s happening to hospitals all over the country and particularly in London where the government is determined to close most District General Hospitals.
‘The BMA is holding a strike ballot for junior doctors against the imposition of new terms and conditions that are unsafe and unfair – a 90-hour week and 30% wage cut. The doctors must not be left to strike alone. We’ve also got a problem with our GPs, with dozens of surgeries threatened with closure in London alone. Health is a service, it’s not a business. The West London Council of Action has held a weekly picket outside Ealing Hospital against its closure for four years and a daily picket for four months.
‘I’ve been down there and it’s clear that no-one accepts this hospital closing. We occupied the front of the Ealing maternity for a week to stop its closure on 1st July and the occupation was supported by the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell. But they still closed it and are now moving on to the other departments. We heard news last week that the world-famous Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge has been placed in “special measures”.
‘It has 1000 beds and a serious shortage of staff, all caused by the government. Year in, year out health workers and other public sector workers have faced a 1% or 0% pay rise and what did the unions do about it? A one day strike! That’s no way to fight. It’s all part of smashing up our NHS, the jewel in the crown. They are smashing up the Welfare State before our eyes and the union leaders are letting them do it.
‘It came out last week that there are 100,000 homeless children in Britain. Last week in Barnet, north London, armed police, dogs and bailiffs, came in and evicted 100 residents from family homes where people live. The first thing Thatcher did was to sell off the council homes and now the Tories are selling off housing association homes and what are our trade union leaders doing? Nothing! Prentis, the leader of Unison, cried crocodile tears about Addenbrookes, but he knows very well they’re out to smash the NHS.
‘I got an email from my union urging me to lobby the Tory Party Conference later this month, saying it was going to be a “festival of resistance”. They’re saying the fight against the closure of hospitals and against homelessness is a festival! They shouldn’t be lobbying the Tories, they should be organising a general strike to bring them down. And we can’t let the doctors strike on their own, industrial unions have to come out with them and if the union leaders aren’t prepared to organise a general strike to support them then they have to be kicked out.
‘While workers are getting hammered, in the last five years the billionaires in this country have doubled their wealth from a quarter of a trillion to half a trillion. Capitalism is a bankrupt system, it is completely defunct. Let’s fight for a general strike and a socialist society where there will be a planned economy which will provide for everyone.’
Christopher Watson, a qualified electrician and Unite member, said: ‘I’ve just come down from up north in solidarity with your campaign. I saw in my local paper that Barrow in Furness maternity is under attack and I’d like to invite you to bring your banner up there to show how to fight and win. If anything happens to my hospital it will be terrible. We have to save all hospitals. Courtesy of the News Line the whole country is watching your campaign, we take our hats off to you.’
Jasmin Parsons, from Our West Hendon, said: ‘This Tory government is not just privatising the NHS, it’s privatising all public assets. In West Hendon we are fighting to defend our homes, which are all on public land that they are selling off to multi-millionaire property developers and it’s got to be stopped. I say force the unions to take your lead. When the NHS was first set up the amount of land it got was phenomenal, but now it is all being sold off and they are decimating hospitals. Our homes and our hospitals belong to us and they must be defended and saved. Ordinary people must be allowed to live in security and we have to stop them from taking over our homes and our hospitals. Who’s assets are they? Ours!’
Next speaker was Professor Julian Leff, who said: ‘I was a doctor in the NHS for 24 years. The Tories are determined to destroy the welfare state, they couldn’t care less about poor people living on breadlines. I am impressed by the junior doctors standing up for their rights. I’ve often had to send patients into private hospitals because the NHS didn’t have enough beds. The Tories have decided to destroy the welfare state through privatisation. There has got to be a general uprising of the public.’
Asher Bennett, Walthamstow Young Socialists, said: ‘It’s the privatisation of the public sector. We need to defend what we own. It’s come out that a charity is giving bus tickets to young homeless people so that they can sleep on night buses, this is so wrong. I was young and homeless myself. People treat you with contempt and try to steal from you, we have to fight back.’
Local supporter and grandmother, Surinder Grewal, from the West London Council of Action, said: ‘We have been campaigning to save Ealing Hospital for a long time. They closed maternity on 1st July and we occupied the front of it for a week before they closed it. 3000 babies were born every year at our maternity and now it’s closed, which is very upsetting for the pregnant women of this borough. We marched through Southall twice against the closure and the shops closed their doors in support, but now they have announced that they are closing paediatrics and A&E soon and planning to demolish the hospital.
”This is a life and death question for many thousands of families. We picket the front of the hospital every day from 7-9am and are campaigning very hard to save it and we want all trade unions to take up our fight. But some trade union leaders disappoint us and oppose our fight. They must either support us or be removed. Unions should stand by their members to save their jobs. This hospital is our lifeline and must be saved at any cost. We will do anything to save our hospital and together we will reverse the decision to close it. It is not somebody else’s job, it is each and everybody’s responsibility to save our Ealing Hospital. If there is a will there is a way. Hands off our hospitals!’
BMA member Anna Athow said: ‘This government has declared war on junior doctors by seeking to impose a new and vastly detrimental contract on them. This government is seeking to privatise the NHS and bring in an American healthcare system.’
John Williams Kofum, Lewisham Young Socialists, said: ‘The government are closing the public services in order to create private companies. Let’s spread the word to families and friends to defend the NHS.’
Local worker Ramon Nijhawan said: ‘We have to set a precedent. Youth are attracted by technology and they haven’t got the experience of what happens when a hospital is gone. Even those with a degree, when they go for a cleaner’s job thousands go for it. Education should be free for everyone.’
The next speaker, Anselm Adims said: ‘I’ve just retired as a nurse and I worked at Ealing Hospital for eight years. I now picket the front of the hospital every day of the week against its closure. We have to save Ealing Hospital, we need its expansion, not its closure. The Tories want to privatise the NHS and the trade union leaders are not doing anything for us, but the unions are ours and we will get rid of our present leaders.
‘We had to change the venue of our conference at the last minute because the university bosses where we had booked it wanted to stop our fight – they sabotaged us at the last moment. But we went ahead with our conference and I want to ask you to come every morning to join our picket and help us take our struggle forward to victory.’
Hillingdon Hospital Strike leader and Unison member, Malkiat Bilku said: ‘In three days time, on 1st October, it will be the 20th anniversary of the start of our strike on 1st October 1995. It was a five-year strike and in the end we won it in 2000 ,when we beat the privateer that tried to cut our wages by £40 a week and we beat our union leaders who tried to sell us out. In the end, in 2000, we got our jobs back and maximum compensation,’ she said to resounding applause.
”At Hillingdon we picketed every single day and at Ealing now we are picketing every day, Monday to Friday from 7am to 9am,’ Bilku continued. They are taking all the facilities out of Ealing – heart and orthopaedics and all communities in Southall and Ealing will be affected. The trade unions must be made to take strike action to save Ealing Hospital and the whole NHS.’
Bill Rogers replied to the discussion, saying: ‘Now’s the time for the General Strike, let’s fight for a socialist future – a future that workers and young people can look forward to. We must go forward to socialism.’
The resolution was passed unanimously.
