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From International Socialism (1st series), No.99, June 1977, pp.15-21.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
3 YEARS ago when Qwen Evans and Lucy Dyer, ancillaries at Poplar Hospital, talked their way into the ship repair yards, past the dock gates and into the sweatshops of the Isle of Dogs to try and organise resistance to the closure of their hospital by the people who used it, they didn’t realise they were pioneers. Even a year ago, socialists who spoke out against the health service cuts were suspected of scare-mongering. ‘What cuts?’ cooed management, even as they were perfecting their closure plans. Now no Len Murray speech is complete without a sorrowing passage in lowered tones about the unfortunate, indeed intolerable, effect of the cuts on our people. And, where it matters, hundreds of industrial shop stewards, from Heathrow to Upper Clyde, will have listened to direct appeals from hospital trade unionists. In city, town and village, anti-cuts committees have mushroomed and petitioned, protested, marched, and struck. The national lobby of Nov 17th 1976 and NUPE’s subsequent regional protests in Stockport, Wiltshire, Cambridge, Essex and Glasgow, however half-heartedly organised by the full-timers, have shown the strength of feeling among hospital workers.
Now no-one can deny the cuts exist. But no-one seems to be able to stop them either. The net effect of all that marching has been negligible. Since Nov 17th, they have gained momentum. And over the next two years, their effect will accelerate still faster. Already over the last 3 years, 102 hospitals have been closed for good. And for every Elizabeth Garrett Anderson or Hounslow Hospital that resists, there have been literally hundreds of wards, clinics and facilities that have been lost without a fight. What is happening to the NHS and how is it possible to put up resistance which succeeds?
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Last updated on 23.3.2008