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At its meeting last Monday the North-East Thames Regional Health Authority decided unanimously to recommend to David Ennals, Secretary of State for the Social Services that the hospital should be closed "as soon as possible"

Thus the work-in which has kept the hospital open for the past 18 months now faces its most difficult moments.

The scene for Monday's decision was set weeks ago when the Camden and Islington AHA washed their hands of the task of closing the hospital and referred the decision to Ennals.

That move by the AHA was viewed by the capitalist press, many of the EGA workers and by the left press as a victory for the work-in.

Socialist Press alone warned that no victory had yet been won and that the fight to keep the hospital open was just reaching its most difficult stage.

We wrote that the fight was no longer against the petty bureaucrats and tin pot politicians of the AHA but was not with the DHSS the Lib-Lab coalition itself.

It therefore comes as no surprise that the RHA has made this decision.

Nor are we surprised that the four labour movement representatives on the RHA went along with the decision.

F.V. Hencher, from the SE Region TUC, Tessa Jowell from Camden's Labour Council, D.B. Hoodles from Islington's Labour Council and L.H. Lipson of Haringey's Labour Council all failed to dissent from the decision to close the hospital.

We are not surprised by these performances. But we do say that these people must be disciplined by their organisations, which in any case should refuse to send their members to give credence to this bosses' committee.

The important question, now, however, is the preparation for the inevitable moves by the DHSS to physically close the hospital.

The 24-hour picket which has been run down over the past few months must now be re-estab. lished.

Pledges by union branches and shop stewards committees to call strikes in defence of the EGA must be sought.

Demands must be placed on the executive members of NUPE, ASTMS, COHSE and NALGO to call London-wide strike action as soon as Ennals rubber-stamps the RHA decision.

Inside the EGA the workers must be prepared to implement real control of the hospital.

Mass meetings of union members separate from the consultants and hospital management must be called urgently to plan these actions.

A well-planned and determined defence of the EGA at this stage around its original demands-for the repair of the lift and upgrading of the hospital on its Euston Road site-will have incalculable importance in the fight against the cuts as a whole.

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