THE London Fire Brigades Union banner will be on today’s mass march to stop the closure of Lewisham Hospital.
Yesterday it was outside Ealing Hospital on the West London Council of Action’s picket, where it attracted huge support for the fight against the coalition government’s policy of hospital and fire station closures.
Malkiat Bilku, who led the Hillingdon hospital strike, told News Line: ‘We have got to stop the closure of our hospitals and fire stations. This means that we must occupy them to keep them open and force the TUC to call a general strike to bring down the Cameron-Clegg coalition.’
Ealing FBU rep Dave Petch told News Line: ‘My mum worked in this hospital for 20 years, in the John Connolly Ward, which they are planning to demolish.
‘This government want private health care and they want to cut the fire service to the bare minimum. They just want to save money.
‘Mayor Johnson has threatened to impose the fire cuts. Well, he’s playing with fire, because we won’t accept them.
‘This country is second to none in public services, but this government is out to destroy the lot, all our public services: welfare, health, the whole Welfare State – they are attacking it all.
‘This government is not going to listen to individual unions. There needs to be a coalition of all the unions – how else are we going to show that we are serious, other than coming together in general strike action?’
Graham Evans, maintenance supervisor and Unite member in St Bernard’s Hospital, which is next to the closure-threatened Ealing District General, said: ‘This hospital is vital for the airport links, traffic links and it is in a huge residential area.
‘There are also various areas of expertise – maternity, cardiac. Also, the building still has life in it, and then there are the jobs, with very slim chances of re-employment within the NHS.
‘The unions must get together, a general strike is what we need.’
Bemla Devi, a health care assistant and Unison member, said: ‘We need this hospital and I need my job. The service we provide is first class and we must be allowed to continue to do so.
‘I went on the march to stop the closure last summer along with very many other members of staff. None of us want it to close.’
Twenty-one-year-old Sophie Grummitt said: ‘My mum’s a nurse in Paediatrics. She’s right in the middle of her nursing degree, which is being funded by the hospital, and she doesn’t even know if she’s going to be allowed to finish it.
‘This government is causing damage to basic things, it must be stopped.’
Thousands of Lewisham residents in South London are marching today against proposals to shut the A&E and Maternity departments at Lewisham hospital.
Unite said what was happening in Lewisham, the dismantlement of NHS provision so that it can be sold off to the private sector for profit, is a mirror image of what is going to happen across England in the coming months.
Steve Turner, Unite executive director of policy and a local resident, who will be speaking at the rally said: ‘When the future of a solvent and well-run A&E department like Lewisham, serving 750,000 residents can simply be wiped out, what hope is there for other hospitals starved of resources?
‘If we don’t stand together to expose the litany of broken promises we’ve been pedalled by this government, the whole NHS will be privatised before our very eyes.’
The Unison trade union added that the closure plan is in spite of pre-election pledges by the Tories to ‘stop all forced hospital A&E department closures’.
Conroy Lawrence, Unison representative at the hospital, said: ‘We urge the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, to listen to what the people of Lewisham are saying, and to study the detailed opposition to the closure plans put forward by all sections of the medical and nursing profession.’
Mike Davey, Unison branch secretary, said: ‘Jeremy Hunt should not ignore the deep concerns of the medical and nursing professions, and from the public.’
Unison stressed: ‘These closures are driven not on clinical grounds, but due to massive reductions in NHS funding, exacerbated by the disastrous Private Finance Initiative which has bankrupted so many hospitals.’
