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this makes no sense to me....
You're not the one that's going to be making a fortune off the replacement PFI project or the cherry picked profitable operations or ....
NHS
alegria wrote:
is there already an area to discuss NHS stuff?
Not exactly, but this organise forum is for organising - i.e. practical responses to things which is what this thread seems to be.
We have a tag of NHS-related content on the rest of the site:
http://libcom.org/tags/nhs
as well as our global health sector:
http://libcom.org/sectors/health-medicine
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does anyone have experience resisting these closures? is there a national network for it, and how are groups working together?
We have some recent additions to the library about historical resistance to hospital closures, particularly Occupy and win - a manual for fighting hospital closures and Occupational therapy - the incomplete story of the University College Hospital strikes and occupations of 1992-4
There is some new cross-union initiative to "save" the NHS and a few campaign groups, but don't have any web addresses to hand, hopefully someone else can help!
Keep Our NHS Public is the lefty/union campaign i've come across
I've just written something for the next issue of Freedom about the NHS (I work in the Department of Health). Frankly it is nothing short of crazy-
1. Some 37,000 jobs are going to be lost this year, yet the government are predicting shortages of staff including 14,000 less nurses than need- meaning longer waitiing lists.
2. The independent think tank Reform has pointed out that there is a direct link between deficits and PFI, yet the government are ploughing ahead with £37 billion worth of PFI projects. PFI is bleeding the NHS dry.
3. Independent Treatment Centres (private run) are guaranteed income regardless of whether they treat any one or not. In Oxford one has actually treated a grand total of NO patients but has still received millions, while the local trust is in deficit. Where I live the local PCT's deficit is equivalent to the moeny its ITSC got for the patients it did not treat.
4. Labour claim to be making care 'patient centred' but yet are closing local A&E and maternity units.
This year could be a bumpy one if the government tries to push through a below inflation pay cut and regional pay, on top of job losses, if the unions stand up to Labour....a big 'if' though as so far all they have done is organise two lobbies of Parliament.
There is a lot of local opposition to Labour's policies but talk of the NHS being Labour's poll tax seem premature - the lack of a national campaign (thanks to the union's inertia) limits the effectiveness of opposition, although there is talk of a national demo' in March.
By the way the 'health gap' between rich and poor has actually INCREASED under Labour (by 7% for women).
Finally IWW and Sol Fed are trying to organise radical health workers... iww.org.uk
is there already an area to discuss NHS stuff?
little hospital in my folks market town is closing sort of indefinitely, due to funding problems. its bloody stupid, seeing as it looks after all the local villages too, and its in an area with one of the highest pensioner populations around, and limited transport. added to this, plans have been announced to build 4,000 new houses- this in a town with only a 6,000 population and no services to deal with an increasing population. how can you plan to perhaps triple the local population and take away the only local hospital ???
this makes no sense to me....