Save Our Hospitals - protest march 27 April 2013

 

Dr Onkar Sahota, local GP and  Ealing and Hillingdon’s London Assembly member, is leading the fight to stop the closure of NHS hospital services in North West London and invites everyone to  join the biggest public demonstration through the streets of Ealing in living memory being held on Saturday 27 April 2013.

 

To join the march to Save Our Hospitals meet at Southall Park at 11.30am or Acton Park at 12.30pm. Attend the rally at Ealing Common from 2pm.

Why we are campaigning

 

 

On 19 February the London NHS approved an unprecedented programme of hospital closures.

North West London NHS plans to close four out of nine accident and emergency departments in NW London and other important services, like maternity units at four NW London Hospitals, Ealing, Central Middlesex, Hammersmith and Charing Cross. This will affect the healthcare of 2 million people in the region.

If these closures go ahead there will be no Accident and Emergency (A&E) facilities in the London Boroughs of Ealing, Hammersmith or Brent which together have a population the size of the city of Leeds. All emergencies will be diverted to neighbouring hospitals, such as Hillingdon and Northwick Park, which are already at capacity and exceed waiting time targets for A&Es.

1000 hospital beds will be lost and the NHS will sell hospital land to property developers to raise money.

88% of GPs in Ealing refused to support the closure plans. Save Our Hospitals campaigners believe the closures will lead to loss of lives.

The decision is in the hands of the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt MP, who has said it will be subject to an independent review after Ealing Council refused to accept the decision because it is bad for residents of the Borough and the region.

It is now vital that the people of Ealing, and the other boroughs of NW London, demonstrate their strength of opposition to this plan to prevent the government from following it through.

Opposition to the closures has received local cross party support :

“These plans will be devastating both for Ealing and across North West London. With the growing population in the region we desperately need the accident and emergency units, and other health services such as maternity and paediatrics, that are provided by Ealing, Central Middlesex, Charing Cross and Hammersmith Hospitals. I am concerned that financial considerations are driving the proposed changes rather than people’s health needs and services will be stretched to beyond breaking point. I want as many people as possible to get involved in the Save Our Hospitals campaign so that health chiefs realise just how unpopular their proposals are.

 Cllr Julian Bell – leader of the Labour Group and Ealing Council

“We have joined with all the political parties in Ealing to save the hospitals that people in the area use, namely Ealing, Charing Cross, Hammersmith and Central Middlesex Hospitals. Under plans published in the Shaping a Healthier Future consultation, these hospitals will be downgraded to ‘local hospitals’, stripping them of nine of the eleven major types of service currently provided on-site. If these plans go through it will have a huge effect on all those who currently use the hospitals, especially those with chronic conditions who have to make their own way to hospital for treatment regularly.

 Cllr David Millican – leader of the Conservative Group Ealing

 

“My party are against the possible closures or downgrading of Ealing Hospital and the other hospitals which serve residents in the borough. If our local hospital loses the A & E, Maternity and Children’s wards, patients and visitors will have further to travel. People should make sure they fill in the petition. 

 Cllr Gary Malcolm – leader of the Liberal Democrat Group Ealing

Ed Miliband promoting a future that works

Today in London tens of thousands of people from across Britain marched together in protest against the austerity being imposed on the country by the Tory led coalition government.


Protestors against the Government's austerity strategy marching up Regent Street towards Hyde Park

The marchers gathered in Hyde Park and amongst the many speakers Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party, made the following speech:

"I am here to join with people from all walks of life.
From all parts of our country.
Think about the faces in this crowd.
Young people looking for work.
Like Ashley Parsons from Wolverhampton who you saw on the film.
Let us say we stand with all the young people who want to work in Britain today.

We have nurses determined to fight for the future of our National Health Service.
Let us say we stand with them and all the men and women who serve in our NHS.

Construction workers, like Colin Roach from Greater Manchester, recently laid off.
Let us say we stand with him and people across the whole of British business who want an economy that works for them.

And all the off-duty police officers here today.
Let us say we stand with them as they seek to protect front-line policing and improve communities across Britain.

None of these people think Britain owes them a living.
They are not asking for the earth.
They just have a simple request.
They want a future that works for them.
They believe we do better as One Nation.
Private and public sectors working together.
North and South
Trade unions and British business.

A clear reference to the Andrew Mitchell affair

But they do not see that future under this government.
Instead, they see a government dividing our country.
Andrew Mitchell may finally have resigned.
But the culture of two nations runs right across this government.

They cut taxes for millionaires.
And raise taxes for ordinary families.
They leave young people out of work while the bonuses at the banks carry on.
They even have a Chancellor of the Exchequer who tries to travel first class on a standard class ticket.

It’s one rule for those at the top and another rule for everybody else: everybody like you who plays
 their part and does the right thing.
The trouble with this government is that while they are think they are born to rule, it turns out they are not very good at it.



Off-the-wall demon-stration aimed at
Michael Gove, Education Secretary,

A few weeks ago, I asked:
Have you ever seen a more incompetent, hopeless, u-turning, pledge-breaking, make it up as you go along, back of the envelope, miserable shower than this government and this Prime Minister?
What have they done since?
They’ve tried to prove me right.

Just this week:
David Cameron tried to keep his Chief Whip, even though the rest of us could see he had to go.
He made up an Energy policy on Wednesday, without any idea of how he could achieve it.
And he clings to an economic plan that is just not working.

David Cameron: a weak, clueless Prime Minister, who cannot stand up for the interests of this country.
And they are not just incompetent.
Their old answers just don’t work any more.
Trickle-down economics.
Cutting rights at work.
David Cameron calls it the “sink or swim” society.
But you don’t build a successful country with sink or swim.
You do it by building One Nation.

And that is what the next Labour government will do.
Of course, there will still be hard choices.
With borrowing rising not falling this year, I do not promise easy times.
I have said whoever was in government now there would still need to be some cuts.
But this government has shown us cutting too far and too fast, self-defeating austerity, is not the answer.

Pointing out that cuts
are preventing growth

We would make different but fairer choices including on pay and jobs.
So here is what we would do.
Day one, with me as Prime Minister, we start to give all of our young people a stake in the future.
We will tax the bankers’ bonuses and start putting young people back to work again.
We would build 100,000 homes.And get our construction workers working again.
We will end the privatisation experiment in the NHS.
And repeal the Tories’ NHS bill.
And to all the small businesses across Britain, I pledge instead of a country that serves its banks, we would have banks that serve our country.

I tell you one cut I would never make:
I would never cut taxes for millionaires while raising taxes for everybody else.

One Nation is a country where those with the broadest shoulders always bear the greatest burden.
One Nation is a country where we give hope to our young people again.
And One Nation is a country where we defend and improve our great institutions, like the National Health Service.
One Nation.
A country united not divided.
A future that works.
A future that Britain builds together

NHS cancer figures contradict David Cameron and Andrew Lansley's claims

"David Cameron and Andrew Lansley's repeated criticisms of the NHS's record on cancer have been contradicted by new research that shows the health service to be an international leader in tackling the disease, as  reported in the Guardian.

While the Tory led coalition Government attempts to justify their shake up of the NHS to introduce further privatisation, it turns out that  the publically owned, tax payer funded, free at the point of use system is actually very efficient in the treatment of cancer.

"In fact, the NHS in England and Wales has helped achieve the biggest drop in cancer deaths and displayed the most efficient use of resources among 10 leading countries worldwide, according to the study published in the British Journal of Cancer.