health and medicine
News and articles about work, policy and workers' struggles in hospitals and pharmaceuticals around the world.
Protests across the UK over NHS cuts
Health workers and their supporters have been holding local demonstrations across the country in protest over cuts in jobs and services.
The national day of action was organised by NHS Together, a combination of unions and local NHS staff groups. The protests aim to highlight that services are under increasing threat from budget deficits and privatisation.
Hospital Occupations
Images from hospital occupations. Taken from: Occupy and win
Kashmir: Public sector workers continue strike, French NGO MSF threatens strikers.
Public sector workers in Kashmir continue strike action to attempt to force the government not to renege on promises it made to workers after the 2005 earthquake. The French-based NGO Médecins Sans Frontières has threatened striking health workers at one of its district hospitals with dismissal if they continue the strike.
Public sector workers continue strike despite leader’s betrayal
Medecin Sans Frontier threaten striking health workers with dismissal
Manchester NHS workers on strike
250 employees of Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust will take their first day´s strike today, Wednesday January 31st. This follows a 91.6% ballot result in favour of strike action.
The strike action will be taken by 250 community nurses, occupational therapists and team secretaries to stop the cuts in community mental health teams which include:
* reduction in staffing numbers in community mental health teams and consequent higher caseloads, and a reduction in service to keep people well
Nurses asked to do unpaid work to avoid "significant job losses"
Health campaigners have condemned an NHS trust for asking its staff to resign, work for no pay or take unpaid leave in order to reduce its multimillion-pound deficit.
Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, which reported a £16. 7m deficit last year, has sent staff a letter asking them to work unpaid for a day, take six months unpaid leave, take voluntary redundancy or defer taking five days of their holiday until next year to help balance its books.
1978-1979: Winter of Discontent
A short history of the of the widespread strike movement that occurred during the winter of 1978-1979 in Britain. The 'Winter of Discontent' marked the largest stoppage of labour since the 1926 General Strike.
The factors that provoked the widespread stoppage of work by thousands of British workers in the winter of 1978-79 began with the Labour government of James Callaghan's attempt to enforce limits on pay rises to curb inflation. Inflation had reached a height of nearly 26.9% in August 1975.
Wildcat strikes hit Zimbabwe
Wildcat strikes for better pay that have hit Zimbabwe could trigger wider work boycotts and spontaneous street protests, escalating political tensions in the crisis-hit country, analysts said on Monday.
Opposition attempts to organise peaceful demonstrations against President Robert Mugabe's government -- largely blamed for a deep economic crisis -- have failed so far, leaving analysts asking if Zimbabweans are afraid to face their leaders.
Occupational therapy - the incomplete story of the University College Hospital strikes and occupations of 1992-4
The story of the (ultimately unsuccessful) struggle to keep a hospital open despite the efforts of the government, the Area Health Authority, management, University College London and the Wellcome Foundation and Trust.
From the http://www.endangeredphoenix.com website.
Occupational Therapy - the incomplete story of the University College Hospital strikes occupations of 1992/3/4 was put together by a number of individals in the UCH occupation together with help and suggestions from others, London 1995.
Health worker and bank strikes in Palestine
Banks in Palestine went on a one-day general strike yesterday after a bomb was detonated outside the Arab Bank in Gaza early on Friday.
Circumstances surrounding the explosion are unclear and attackers are unknown. A statement by the Association of Banks in Palestine suggested it may be a reprisal for their complicity in the unpaid wages dispute which led to mass strikes by public sector workers, pointing to stone throwing attacks on banks by strikers.
Mass sick-in by Canadian hospital staff
On Friday, around 125 hospital tech staff in the Cape Breton district called in sick.
Radiological and laboratory staff at around five hospitals in the district had been threatening industrial action over wages, and followed this up with the sick-in on Friday, successfully disrupting blood work, X-rays and ultrasounds.
More than 125 hospital workers in Cape Breton called in sick Friday, forcing health officials to cancel some lab work and surgeries.
