'NHS is safe with us' fraud exposed London Health in front line of Tory cutbacks

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of the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital delayed closure for three yeal OVER 50 hospitals closed, 5,000 beds lost and 9,000 jobs jettisoned. That is the bleak picture of the Tory onslaught on London's health. And these figures are based on meeting cash limits before last week's additional round of cuts of £100 million was announced. It means the devastation of health care in London.

The Tories, following the election are confident in their ability to ram through any policies they choose and now, only a month after the election, are dropping all pretence of protecting the NHS. Thatcher's 'the NHS is safe with us" speech is confirmed as a crass lie. The battle plans are drawn and London is the front line.

While Thatcher and her ministers sit in their fashionable and wealthy surroundings, using private hospitals for their health, the working class people of . Hackney, Tower, Hamiets, Wandsworth, Lambeth and other boroughs wait for years in pain, for routine surgery, and then go home before they are ready to damp and inadequate housing with no community health services available. This is the Tory version of "protecting the NHS"

Explosive

The Working Group on Inequalities in Health was set up in 1977. It reported to Patrick Jenkin, then Secretary of State in 1980. The report was explosive. It showed tht inequalities in health care are getting worse and not better.

After careful researching the Black Report pointed out that working class people suffer more ill health, do not have equal access to facilities and particularly would benefit from more preventitive health.

In his forward to the report Jenkins noted that:

... the group has reached the view that the causes of health inequalities are so deep rooted that only a major and wide ranging programme of public expenditure is capable of altering the pattern."

He then went on to give clear notice that the Tories had no intention of doing anything about it.

"I must make it clear that additional expenditure on the scale which could result from the report's recommendations ... is quite unrealistic in present or any forseeable circumstances [my emphasis ... I cannot therefore endorse the group's recommendations."

Then he attempted to suppress the report, releasing only 260 duplicated copies.

The problems highlighted by the Black report and the devastating attacks being made on the inner city areas of London converge to show the lengths the ruling class will go to in order to preserve the crumbling facade of capitalism. The health of the working class must be sacriFirst par the cuts policies back. : of a ro up on and a l at the needed fight that they should be cut.

However, the teaching hospitals usually treat people on a natiónal basis and receive no recognition from the budget for this.

This furthers the inequalities of health because people who live locally are often deprived of their local hospita: while the teaching hospital is maintained - For instance Hackney (recently highlighted as the most deprived borough in England) is jumped with the City of London for health care. St. Barts, a major teaching hospital is in the City.

Its services are used by the people who work in the City (but live in the suburbs). It is virtually inaccessible to people in the north and east Hackney.

But faced with overspending the District have said that a local Hackney hospital, St. Leonard's, must close. It is small, friendly, well liked and well placed in the borough. It is essential for the health of Hackney.

This pattern is being repeated all over London - the South London Hospital must close for St. George's to keep going, East Ham closes for additional money to run a new nucleus hospital. St. Mary's W9 shuts for St. Mary's W2, Mildmay Mission and Bethnal Green must subsidise the London Hospital.

What becomes clear is that there is no real planning for health. There is no question of consulting local people, or even taking their needs into account. Everything must be done to make the budget balance. Now, faced with too few beds and trying to say that there are too many beds Fowler has come up with a new scheme - "productivity and throughput"

"Throughput"

Discussing closures recently a union member asked but where will they put an extra 200 beds if the hospital closes. The answer is nowhere. The beds are not being replaced; instead "throughput" in existing beds will be increased. A tiny word which describes a series of miserable manoeuvres.

For throughput means discharging people from hospital very quickly, usually before they are medically fit - to increase productivity. This coupled with the inadequate housing conditions and lack of community services in inner city areas will mean increased suffering and ill health for the working class.

It is okay for Fowler to spout his rhetoric: but when was the last time he was in Hackney or Lambeth tosee the despair that his policies cause? When was the last time he saw a pensioner weeping in pain waiting in the cold for an ambulance which did not come because of the 20% cuts in the Ambulance Service budget?

When did he see a man with two artificial hips in agony carrying his shopping across his shoulders in carrier bags tied together with a handkerchief, taking two hours to walk a few yards to the shops and back? No home helps available because of Fowler's cuts.

The DHSS creates scenes like this but it does not consider them when deciding to cut. It just cobbles some statistics together, multiplies and divides, and comes up with 'norms' These norms, originally meant as crude guidelines, have now become an administrative bible.

You make cuts to fit in with the norms, even though the norms do not fit the area. The 'norms' become the ultimate instead of just guidelines -therefore apply the 'norms' and cut the existing services.

That is what is about to happen in London. The Tories have made their intentions clear - to dismantle the NHS in London. But, London has a long and strong history of fighting Bares against hospital closures.

We must decide now how we will fight them and mobilise quickly to do it. There are increasing calls for "extra parliamentary activity", strikes and occupations, to stop the Tories eroding the welfare state.

The trade union léaders and reformist politicians will shy away from this kind of action, but it is the only way to defend the working class ánd the only way to save the NHS.

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STAYS OK!