Drastic cuts in women's health care

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Innoworth's neunatinn to ston closure: muhlic opinion is not enouth. ters or daughters-in-law proposing the closure of should give up their jobs to beds for mentally ill and take care of elderly depend- mentally ents. If no such 'caring people. Where will they woman' is available, then go? Who will look after rally: March 19, 11am from St Hospital, Church Lane, London THE Regional Health Authority centred in Oxford is proposing a series of cuts and closures which seem to be designed specifically to attack the health of women in the area.

By April 1 they propose to close three Family Planning clinics, with drastic reductions lof up to four sessions) at eight clinics and staff losses at a further eight.

According to the Health Authority itself, the effect of these reductions will be to:

• reduce the choice of clinics and sessions, • restrict the opportunity for clients to be seen quickly, • extend recall period (the time between appointments), • reduce training flexibility for staff, • reduce screening procedures within the clinics.

The implications are clear. More waiting around, shorter consultations because less staff, and increased risks of cervical cancer and infections because of reduced screening:

Women needing contraceptive advice and prescriptions will be transferred into General Practitioners' waiting rooms, with a bad effect on already overworked GPs. Also, not all GPs have the necessary expertise or are even willing to prescribe contraception to women.

Finances

AIR RAJIRIHI QUAT IT ply reallocate spending.

GPs. The difference is that fall to the Family Practi- about. scripcion costs, is the main Vice Chair - Grant sub-committee Tom Sawyer NUPE Bob Cant LCGR SPEAKERS_FROM:

Lesbian Line Visible Lesbian Gay Young Sociali:

Further cuts being considered include introduction of 24-hour maternity care. This is phrased like other cuts proposals -in an attractive way, as the 'development' of 24 hour care.

Of course some women would like to get back home as soon as possible after childbirth - but imagine returning home just one day after childbirth, especially if you live in dilapidated, damp, cramped Are a young mother learning to cope with your first baby, or if you have a large family and as soon as you get home will face pressure to care for the other children, husband, and home.

Paediatricians consider the first week of a baby's life to be of great importance. Who is going to be around to help mothers cope with feeding problems, post-natal depression and sleepless nights? Certainly not district nurses and health visitors, who are receiving their share of cuts.

Brunt

The major brunt of the £8 million 'savings' is to £_11 aaronso all, nowever, on services to the elderly, which will be rationed (as the RHA itself puts it) "to a level well below that which now exists"

Again we see the euphemisms; services to the elderly and mentally ill are to be cut back and responsibility transferred to the community'.

Mir antina - IMITA IN HOMO AUT be a Good Thing (so much No-one should be deceivThis fits in nicely with proposals. ни'о VOLITY worr The RHA plan to reduce institutional care - on the assumption that people will get support services in their own homes. But those support services Social maninl workers, home helps, meals on wheels, etc. -are themselves being cut back by councils.

When the health authorities turn the elderly away from the hospitals, they know full well what a low level of support they can expect in the community. In reality they expect the family to look after 'their own'.

Thin mann that Matineb- meats the elderly person can quite them? HOW do you launch a national women's campaign to ght the racism and sexism in the Nationaiity and Immigration laws?

Well, a group of 3u women meeting on Sunday March 13 in County Hall, London, may have found the answer.

This was the second recall meeting from the first •Women, Immigration and Nationality'. Conference held in London last October - a conference which brought over 250 women together to share their experiences of sexist and •acist lars.

After the enthusiasm of i= Coaference. the first =is Indig was frustra=÷ it card anything -St Iz decided -5oid another BI t-cac. ice SECTE SACE 7E SE CSA:

LE FETTE =0 =5 itát-iat: definitely a campaigo. involving women at the 'grass roots', not an advice agency, or a small, elitist bunch of women writing submissions for the Equal Opportunity Commission.

As a campaign, we want to focus on the areas where sexism and racism overlap, as we feel that's where the vacuum is. But we recognise that that doesn't mean vowing never to mention men. Sometimes, for example, a campaign which simply anticipate a desperate, degraded, solitary wait until they are 'lucky' enough to fall down stairs or have a heart attack, and dilaaaa for emergen- thus qualify cy hospital admission.

One old incontinent woman in Oxford with no family spent over 24 hours sat on a commode propped up against a table until eventually she was 'got into' a private nursing home some 30 miles away.

Closure The Oxtord • Regional InnIth Arthriter in alon handicapped seems to be focused around the deportation of a man (or men) may be grounded in the denial of rights to women - to be joined by husbands, for example.

Rather than rushing off on every issue, we shall focus first on two main campaigns:

•There are now children being born in Britain who are not 'British' (and who may have no nationality at all). This will have immense repercussions in 18 years time, when a generation of people who've lived all their lives in Britain suddenly find they have no right to remain.

There was some concern expressed that we were falling into a trap by linking children with a women's campaign, as if the two 'naturally went together.

But this was outweighed by the feeling thatsie should have one 'easier горіс • campaign around.

We Fizhi well persuade = au goremment to =as i par of tbe Its. and it would be a boost to win one of our demands.

[The sexual discrimination in Immigration law as seen in the 'Marriage Rules' , which allow women different (and fewer) rights than men. There are many separations causing, great distress now, and this would be a very topical campaign.

We're also starting two other projects. The first is to examine the position of ATER ATTACKI We know the answer all too well: women, some of whom will have lost their paid jobs in the public sector, will be forced to provide the came service for AnTA ATATAA ATITHA SITA free 'in the community'.

Cuts

The proposed cuts are to take place on top of cuts that have been made in the region of 400 other beds. In Oxfordshire alone 100 beds have been lost, and the number of nurses at work cut by 211.

With the notable exception of the occupation of Longworth geriatric hospital for women, very little has been organised in active opposition to past cuts and closures by the health service trade unions.

Fisher women in Immig ration and Nationality law: the way we are treated and our status defined through men. who's in Britain in herman • woman right on a work permit, will, if she marries an overseas student, 'disappear': her status will be wife of overseas student'. We want to build up a picture of this discrimination throughout the law.

Many people are deported each day who have a right to stay in (or enter) Britain, but who don't know their rights, don't seek help, and are turned away by Home Office harassment and threats. So we are aiming to write a pamphlet to give women a guide to their rights.

The above tasks - together with the drafting of a constitution and the working out of some ideas for campaigning - are being carried out by working pardes. who will report back to the next 'National Pianning Meeting.

We've still got a few problems to solve - like how we're going to branch oût outside London - but at least we've agreed a lot, and started some constructive work.

The next National Planning Meeting will be in London on May 15: all women welcome. In the meantime, W.I.N. can be contacted by writing to 44, Theobald's Road, London WC1.

They have now, however, established regional action committee which promises to be a 'high-powered' body with support nationally from unions like NALGO, which has promised £5,000 to assist the campaign.

The major emphasis of this campaign, with the support of such notable personages as Gwynneth Dunwoody (Labour 'shadow' for health) and Lady McCarthy (who chaired the Area Health Authority when it took its decisions to close Cowley Rd and Longworth Hospitals), is a programme of research, education and coordination' for the general public.

Missing

Missing from the proposals, as yet, are any concrete guidelines as to how the NHS could be defended in the region by direct action.

We need to be educating and 'coordinating' public opinion to give active support to such actions in the NHS as strikes and occupations to defend services. And we need to encourage the wider trade union movement to help the fight, for example by sympathy It is, however, early days, and the regional comMarch to March and Benedict's SW17 mittee is in the process mittee is in the process of establishing district action committees.

In the month since it was constituted by a public meeting of over 60 trade union and labour movement delegates, the Oxfordshire Campaign to defend the NHS has been extremely active.

It has focused its effort initially on the cuts and closures in the family planning clinics, which are due to take place by April 1.

It has produced a leatlet, a petition, and a model letter to the press, which it has distributed in the Oxford shopping centre with a stall on International Women's Day.

Door-to-door leafletting and petitioning is taking place in the areas which are losing their clinics. Staff at FPA clinics are being talked to about action that could be taken to prevent closure. Stalls are being set up in shopping centres and market places in Banbury, Abingdon, Wantage, Carterton, and Cowley Centre.

The major drive is for a mass lobby of the District Health Authority on March 22 at 9.45pm in the grounds of the •John Radcliffe Hospital.

Public meetings are being set up all over the county, focusing especially on the attack on women's health.

Apart from the NHS trade unions and Trades Council, the action committee is getting most of its support from women in NAC, Rape Crisis Centre, the university women's group, the Claimants' Uncons sectabour Party womens secaos Affiliate If you can help in any way, ring Oxford 723071. If you wish to affiliate your organisation to the action committee, please send £5 (trade union/Labour Party groups] or £2 (community groups) to Mike Delieu, 31 West St, Chipping Norton (0608 3173).

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