A POWERFUL march of more than 150 local residents, trade unionists, workers, students and youth drew enormous support from the busy Enfield shopping centre on Saturday afternoon, demanding the reopening of Chase Farm Hospital Accident and Emergency Department.
As they were assembling, marchers told News Line why the A&E must be reopened.
Rebecca Ounta said: ‘I live opposite Lewisham Hospital.
‘They wanted to close the A&E and Maternity services at Lewisham, the same as Chase Farm, and we managed to stop them.
‘If you lose your A&E department, you are at risk all the time. We have to reopen Chase Farm A&E.’
Vincenzo Rallo said: ‘I’ve got cancer and I was always looked after at Chase Farm, where the care is amazing. I can’t find words to express my thanks to Chase Farm.
‘My wife suffers from asthma and every time something is wrong we take a cab and are there in two seconds.
‘But after they closed down this beautiful A&E I had to go to North Mid one night two months ago.
‘I reached there. There was no space to park. I got to the A&E at 10pm and it was packed, like dogs in a cage. Some were standing because there was no space, including me and my wife, who has arthritis, asthma and lung problems.
‘11 came, 12, 1am. Suddenly I started to get a bit annoyed, 2, 3, 4, 5am. I asked the nurse, why so slow. She said sorry, I said fine.
‘Eventually at 6 they called me, I saw this young doctor, very young, very tired. I asked him why it was so long. He said he was the only doctor on the ward.
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‘This is so wrong. We must have our Chase Farm back, which we have been used to for 40 years. Chase Farm is like family.’
Kieron Doyle, from Crawley, said: ‘What has happened here is symptomatic, hands off our NHS!
‘This government are placing profit above human life. It’s unclear what’s going to happen to Crawley A&E, but the whole NHS is under attack, as is education.
‘We need to act as one and kick this government out through a general strike.’
Monica Bastyan, 50-years an Enfield resident, said: ‘We need the hospital here, we’ve always had it here and not having it is a disaster when you think how difficult it is to get through the traffic, which is absolutely awful.
‘We won’t let this go, we’ll keep on fighting until we win.’
A delegation of Ealing Hospital workers joined the march.
Manuel Rego, a GMB member, said: ‘We’re here to support the fight to reopen Chase Farm.
‘At Ealing they are threatening to close our A&E Department and Maternity Unit too. They are already running them down. But the A&E and Maternity are really needed.
‘We are in dispute with the privateer at the hospital, called Medirest. We’ve already had four days of strike action, fighting for living wages and sick pay.
‘From 14-21 March next week we are having a one-week strike.’
Jaya Thapa, Ealing Hospital GMB, said: ‘We’re here to support the Chase Farm Hospital. The A&E and Maternity must be re-opened.
‘Also, we want people to know about our week-long strike starting at 7am next Friday, 14th March, and we want the Chase Farm workers, including the Medirest workers at Chase Farm, to support us.’
When the march set off it shook the busy Enfield shopping centre as it hammered out its slogans –
‘Reopen the A&E – No More Tragedies! Defend the NHS – Call a General Strike! Whose Hospital? – Our Hospital! Defend our Public Services – No Privatisation! Reopen Chase Farm – Kick this government out!’
More marchers spoke to News Line on the march.
Enfield resident Joyce Barnard said: ‘I was on the picket of Chase Farm Hospital every Friday for about a year.
‘This is a brilliant march – it shows we won’t accept the closure.
‘How many more working class people are going to have to die before people do something?
‘It is the working class who will die. The rich don’t need Chase Farm, but we do.’
Denver Garrison, from Lewisham, said: ‘The unions have got to be more active. There must be a general strike to stop the hospital closures.
‘A&Es are all overflowing as it is, so closing them makes it worse for all the rest.
‘If they had succeeded in closing Lewisham A&E, then Kings College and Queen Elizabeth hospitals would both have overflowed.
‘So the consequence of the closure of Chase Farm must already be terrible.
‘The fight is continuing at Lewisham and at Chase Farm.’
There was a strong contingent of Young Socialists on the march.
Billy Harding, Peckham YS, said: ‘It’s disgusting what’s happening, this government is cutting our services to pay for a crisis which is none of our doing.
‘This whole idea of austerity is an excuse to take away hard-won rights that have been fought for.
‘This is a good march, we are getting our point across.
‘The Chase Farm A&E must be reopened.’
Jesse Bello, Peckham YS, said: ‘It’s a good march. We have to defend the NHS and all the hospitals.
‘We need to kick this government out.’
Fay Bingham, Hackney YS, said: ‘We have had a lot of support, lots of horns from cars.
‘We have to overturn the decision to close A&Es. It’s not just Chase Farm, it’s a national policy.
‘But it’s not affecting the decision-makers, the politicians, they probably don’t even ever use the NHS.
‘It’s the poor and vulnerable that are harmed. That’s why we’ve got to kick this government out straight away.’
Lukombo, Enfield YS, said: ‘It’s a great march. We’ve been going round for weeks campaigning for it, knocking on doors, handing out leaflets, and everyone we have spoken to wants the hospital reopened, absolutely everyone.’
Then the march arrived at the St Michael’s Church Hall for a rally.
Bill Rogers, Secretary of the North-East London Council of Action, which called the march and rally, was the main speaker.
He opened by congratulating everyone for a ‘lively and very effective march’ and emphasised: ‘We’ve got to build a new fighting leadership in the trade union movement.’
He said: ‘This was our 6th demonstration in defence of Chase Farm Hospital.
‘We organised five years of monthly pickets, then a couple of years ago we moved into a daily picket.
‘On 20th February 2013 we carried out what we always said we were going to do. We marched in and occupied. We were in for about four hours, about 15 or 20 of us.
‘At first we were welcomed, but then things changed. I was being as passive as I could be, but I was tackled to the ground and we were forcibly evicted.
‘When it went to court the judge ruled that the eviction was illegal.
‘The lesson we learnt was that we need a force – hundreds and thousands of workers organised in the trade unions and in some cases not, but in action, to defend the NHS.
‘The A&E closed on 9th December last year and the trade union leadership did nothing to stop it.
‘Then on 15th January the first tragedy occurred.
‘A family came in the middle of the night with a sick child, thinking the A&E was open. But it was closed. There was a 40 minute delay, taking the child to North Mid. But the child died.’
Rogers continued: ‘In the eight weeks after the closure of Chase Farm 1,008 ambulances have had to wait for over half-an-hour to deliver sick patients outside the A&Es at Barnet and North Mid. Then, on 31st January at Barnet Hospital, there were 19 ambulances queuing outside. This is a crisis.
‘If you go to Chase Farm now, there is an enormous sign saying the A&E is closed. Previously they had just a little sign.
‘But what is going to save lives isn’t a new sign, it’s our A&E being reopened.
‘When the government lost in the courts over their plan to close Lewisham, they changed the law and put through Clause 119, which gives Health Secretary Hunt the power to close a hospital in four weeks.
‘The Health Act Section 75 dictates that Clinical Commissioning Groups have to put all services out to tender and now 70% of NHS contracts are going to private companies.
‘But the union leaders are refusing to fight. Unite is having a “digital” campaign on the NHS, that is no campaign at all. The CWU leaders did nothing to oppose the privatisation of the Royal Mail, and the FBU leadership just allowed 10 London fire stations to close without a fight.
‘The government is laughing at these union leaders.
‘We’ve got to have a general strike. Everyone is angry with this government, we have to bring it down. The unions must be forced into action to save the NHS, which was established in 1948 and is the best thing we ever got.
‘But if we smash this government, what will we put in its place, a Labour government? No, they’ll just do the same. It has to be a workers government and socialism.
‘We’re continuing our work at Chase Farm. Why can’t they reopen the A&E? Shame on these union leaders. The example we’ve given is the way forward.’
BhimRaj Rai, leader of the Ealing Hospital Strikers, was the other main speaker.
He said: ‘We have come to support the fight to reopen Chase Farm.
‘What is happening here is happening elsewhere, at Ealing, Hammersmith, Charing Cross and Central Middlesex. We all need to support each other.
‘At Ealing we have had four days of strike action against our employer Medirest, fighting for a living wage, sick pay and extra holidays.
‘Also at Ealing, the A&E and Maternity are set to close. We cannot let this happen.
‘We used to be in Unison but they did nothing for us. Out of 240 domestics, porters and catering staff 150 of us decided to join the GMB union in November 2012.
‘We asked Unison for two years to fight for sick pay and London Weighting, but they would not even discuss it.
‘We are fighting for the London Living Wage of £8.80 per hour. Medirest are paying different rates in all the hospitals in London. We are the lowest paid at £6.31 per hour.
‘We cannot feed our families on this slave wage rate.
‘We don’t get any sick pay. It is dangerous to go to work when sick because sicknesses can spread to patients.
‘We are not happy that Ealing Hospital Unite and Unison are not supporting our struggle. We are also angry that Unison Medirest workers from Chase Farm and High Wycombe and Homerton Hospitals have been crossing our picket lines and scabbing on our strike.
‘Homerton Unison have now said they support our dispute and will not let their members do our jobs.
‘From next Friday, 14th March till 21st March we will be on a seven-day strike.
‘We are determined to win our demands.’
Bill Rogers wound up the rally.
‘When you hear that the unions are organising scabs to go along from Homerton and Chase Farm to do the work of these strikers at Ealing, we have to change our leaders.
‘The thing is, there really is no compromise. The government is being driven on by the economic crisis to take back all the gains of the working class.
‘In order to defend those gains, we have to take on the government, smash it and bring in a workers government.‘
