Great turnout today at the rally on Ealing Common where two marches (from Southall and Acton) converged with the message “Save Our Hospitals” ringing out loud and clear. A sizeable chunk of those in the crowd were not your usual protesting types but the proposed NHS reorganisation (or rather cost-cutting exercise) has struck a chord with many for whom this was their first ever demo – from pensioners to babies in buggies.
There was a shared platform befitting this common cause with Ealing Central Tory Angie Bray speaking alongside Ealing Labour MPs Steve Pound and Virendra Sharma and Hammersmith’s Andy Slaughter – a rarity as Ealing Lib Dem leader Gary Malcolm points out. Also in attendance were Seema Malhotra MP for Feltham and Heston and John McDonnell MP for Hayes and Harlington- even though there are no closures in their seats. Councillors from all three parties too spoke out against and came from as far as as Kensington and Chelsea, underlining how disasterous the proposals to decimate Accident and Emergency services in west London will be, with knock-on effects across all of these boroughs. If this crackpot scheme goes ahead ushering in the effective destruction of Ealing and Charing Cross hospitals, the nearest A and E for people in Ealing Borough (which includes places as far away from central London as Northolt) will be St Marys in Paddington. The hassle and expense involved in getting there will inevitably have potentially fatal consequnces. As health professionals (including newly elected Labour GLA member Onkar Sahota) too pointed out NHS staffers are firmly against too.
At times I had flashbacks to previous demos I’ve attended: was almost expecting “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, out out out” to be chorused. Saw plenty of SWP banners, they always had a reputation for bandwagoneering with any cause going seized on for a recruitment drive but it felt a bit odd to see the Conservatives (who are not locally in coalition with Ealing Lib Dems) employing Socialist Worker type tactics, even having Tory t-shirts printed for the occasion (modelled in the photo by Cllr Phil Taylor). Isn’t it their government forcing through these short sighted cuts? Shouldn’t they be applying pressure on their leadership, or crossing the floor if they are the two are so out of synch that they cannot be reconciled?
Finally as with is usual at demos in gauging the exact number who were, there are widly varying estimates: the BBC says 1000 The Ealing Gazette doubles this to 2k. Heve seen figures of 15-20,00 claimed at an upper limit and 8,000 from the organisers.
6 comments
Comments feed for this article
September 15, 2012 at 9:39 pm
Phil Taylor
Rupa,
I do think you are being a bit cheeky here. You know your current affairs and I am sure that you know that the £20 billion Nicholson Challenge was kicked off by Labour Health Secretary Andy Burnham in 2009, see here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/6208651/NHS-told-to-find-ways-of-saving-20-billion.html
You also know that the idea of Nicholson is to reinvest the savings in new services so that the NHS can deal with increasing demand in a world where health spending is being protected but won’t be increased. The proposals NWL NHS is putting forward drop directly out of their attempt to respond to that challenge. That doesn’t make their proposals right though. The solution that they have come up with is so inequitable, and its impact on Ealing is so disproportionate, that it is quite right that we should fight it. To lose two A&Es within our borders and two on our borders is just unreasonable. All the pain of these proposals is to be borne by too small a group of people.
You know full well that the Coalition has promised to maintain health spending in real terms and although people have quibbled about the odd million here and there, the government is maintaining health spending in real terms at a time when the overall economy is stagnant. No-one in any other mainstream party is talking about putting the £20 billion back into the NHS so let’s all agree that a scheme like this would have come forward whichever mainstream party was in power and that the details of this particular scheme are wrong and particularly onerous for Ealing. We need to fight this duff scheme not each other.
We have all petitioned and marched. The next thing people need to do is respond to the consultation. Go here:
http://www.healthiernorthwestlondon.nhs.uk/have-your-say
September 15, 2012 at 10:28 pm
rupahuq
Hi Phil, Despite those much memed posters of the airbrushed Cameron insisting the NHS would be safe in Conservative hands these scandalous plans have already seen off one Tory health secretary. I think you need to address your concerns to Jeremy Hunt rather than me. Even the Daily Mail (hardly “Socialist Worker”) is urging its readers to do so:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2203809/A-E-shutdown-farce-backlash-begins.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
September 15, 2012 at 10:48 pm
EalingMarcher
What a load of sanctimonious twaddle. The Tories knew the elecorate wouldn’t vote for what they want to do the NHS. So what did they do? They lied their smug faces off and once they got power implemented ruthlessly their vision of a health service chopped up and sold off. With the conditions for patients and people working in the NHS worsening by the day. Phil Taylor has got an almighty cheek. The fact is the Tories want an NHS run for the benefit not of patients but the private companies that hire their parliamentarians.
This is the worst right wing government in living memory. It makes Thatcher look like she wasn’t really trying. You’ve borked the economy, U turned on a 3rd runway and want the NHS run like the railways with profits pilfered from patients to line the pockets of Tory grandees Oh and Cameron lied about NHS spending http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-nhs-spending-unspun/10905
September 15, 2012 at 11:25 pm
Éoin Clarke (@DrEoinClarke)
Each A & E should serve on average 270,000 patients. If the closures at Ealing (and elsewhere) go ahead, the ratio will be 1 A & E for 375,000 patients…. That places more than 33% of an extra burden on A & E services. In addition, 50 ambulance stations are being sold off & shut down in London this year. Combined, this will kill sick and ill people in Ealing. It really is as simple as that.
As for finances, private companies are in cahoot with thousands of Consultants in a bid to distort the patient referral process. More than 50% of patients are offered no choice over their choice of where to receive surgery. This costs billions & much more than could ever be saved from shutting Ealing’s A &E.
It requires no intelligent, just common sense to realise that the shutting of A& Es in London is a gross injustice that will kill innocent and unsuspecting taxpayers.
Warmest regards,
Éoin Clarke.
February 18, 2013 at 6:35 pm
D-Day for West London A and E s Tomorrow « Rupa Huq's Blog
[...] might remember the post here of September 2012 describing how thousands of local residents marched and took part in a rally on Ealin… Well since then October’s public debate at EalingTown Hall drew in 350+ people hostile to [...]
April 10, 2013 at 3:44 am
residential tinting in aurora
Thank you for another wonderful article. The place else could anyone get that kind of
information in such an ideal approach of writing?
I’ve a presentation subsequent week, and I am on the look for such info.