[AND NUPE STIG SAYS •Wanted-Good Homes for 84…]
Socialist Press1977 1977-07-06Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 11
AND NUPE STIG SAYS •Wanted-Good Homes for 84 Old Ladies Liable to Eviction-Regret Unable to Care for Themselves' The place: Memorial Hospital, Shooters still, in south east London. The evil 'landlord'? Greenwich and Bexley Area Health Authority.
Memorial Hospital is just one of several to come under the axe of the AHA's latest proposals for "restructuring' the health service in the area.
Among others selected for closure or curtailment of services are The Gables, Bexley and Welling, Eltham and Mottingham, and the British Home for Mothers and Babies.
Last winter the Memorial lost over 40 of its 124 beds with the removal of maternity and gynaecological care. Now those beds stand idle, and only the geriatric wards remain.
The withdrawal of maternity care has already meant longer waiting lists in the area as well as more perfunctory post-operations care.
If the AHA succeed in chopping geriatrics as well, dozens of the aged will be packed off to stare at the four walls of crowded cubicles elsewhere, while they wait for death to come along.
Staff at the Memorial are determined to keep the wards open, and are particularly enraged at the AHA's high handed tactics of issuing a press statement on the closure without even consulting the workers.
A 'Save the Memorial Action Committee' has been formed that includes members of all the unions represented in the hospital.
Their petition against the closure has attracted more than 22,000 signatures, indicating broad community support.
Manilans =h~ 31543) OFFICIAL STOP in the AHA's own terms. They have recently spent in the region of £100,000 to improve services to the patients, and all that would be lost."
But there are dangers in the Action Committee's approach. They tend to see the problem as one of their own hospital, instead of the defence of the health service as a whole.
The fight must establish a basis for unity of all workers against the cuts.
The AHA are meeting on 13 July to make a 'final decision' on the closure, which is proposed to take place at the end of the month.
It is vital for workers from all hospitals in the area to lobby that meeting, to let the AHA know just what they think of its schemes. And if, as expected, the closure plans proceed, preparations for strike action to force the AHA to change course must begin urgently The local trades council. too. 011=4 CUTS RT CATS HIGHT THE CUT ENg STRIKE THE CUTS CUT ARMS 2403.