THE WEST London Council of Action has called a 7am-9am Xmas Mass Picket of Ealing Hospital on Friday 20th December to step up the fight to force the Johnson led Tory government to reopen Maternity and Paediatrics.
It invites all workers, trade unionists and local residents to come along.
‘I am joining the Xmas Mass Picket and I will tell my friends to as well,’ RCN nurse Joan Kinnon told the weekly picket yesterday as she came off night shift.
‘It’s absolutely essential to reopen Maternity and the Charlie Chaplin children’s ward.’
Art therapist George De Souza said: ‘I’m coming. We need strike action to achieve our aims.
‘I’m at university and the lecturers went on strike to fight for their pensions and conditions recently and they stuck to their guns. That’s what is needed.’
Ealing Hospital IT worker Jermaine Kirwan said: ‘I’ll come. The Tories will privatise the NHS. They have got to be brought down.
‘I’m 100% for a general strike. Reopen Maternity and Paediatrics.’
John Cumberton, a labourer, said: ‘It’s going to be more of the same with this new Tory government and worse. A general strike is needed.’
Alisja De Costa, healthcare assistant, said: ‘We need Maternity here. I’ve worked here for one year now and it’s a good hospital, but Maternity is really needed.’
Ealing Southall Workers Revolutionary Party General Election candidate Hassan Zulkifal was on the picket line early yesterday morning.
He said: ‘Our Xmas Mass Picket is really important to step up the fight to reopen these vital services.
‘The Tories will not give the NHS the funds it needs. Instead they will squeeze NHS funding and then blame the resulting worsening of care and say the reason it is not functioning is because it is run by the state.
‘They will use this as a pretext to open up the NHS to market forces and eventually privatise the provision of healthcare in the UK.
‘We need to organise occupations by galvanising the working class and the youth to a mass movement to push for a general strike to topple the government and bring in a workers government and socialism.
‘The Tories must be brought down.’
