Defence of Lewisham Hospital
Is Defence of the Whole NHS!

The Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign (SLHC) at its mass meeting earlier this month approved its campaign strategy for the next six months. This was an important development for the campaign, and shows it consolidating the factors of consciousness and organisation which had contributed to its successes to date and setting out a plan of campaign to build on them.

As the SLHC website rightly suggests, the campaign has been and continues to be a source of inspiration to many others. Health workers, professionals and the communities which they serve are fighting similar battles on different fronts in the overall struggle to emerge victorious in safeguarding the future of the NHS as a health service dedicated to providing health care for all members of society of the highest quality as of right.

One of the most important features of the SLHC is that its struggle has been carried out on the basis of self-reliance, basing itself on the strength of the people themselves mobilised to participate around the aim of defending Lewisham Hospital and its core acute and maternity services. Not to fight was not considered an option, as the government’s plans would have led to the closure of Lewisham as a district general hospital. The campaign continues to demonstrate the absolutely crucial importance of unity in action of the people’s forces to achieve their goals, irrespective of the political opinions of the individuals and collectives involved.

Historic victory at the High Court in taking
on the government in a judicial reviewAs readers may know, the SLHC won an historic victory at the High Court in taking on the government in a judicial review of its plans to embroil Lewisham Healthcare in financial issues of sustainability which did not pertain to it. As the strategy document says, “At this point we have the upper hand. Everything we have done so far, big or small, has been a positive contribution to our overall success. Our high court victory was historic as it challenged the first use of legislation that if left on the statute books could be used to close and downgrade hospitals all over England.”

The document emphasises, however, “Our message is that this was a victory in just one battle in a long war not only to protect our local services but the whole NHS.” This could be said of every step the campaign has taken moving from one successful step to another. This outlook also emphasises that the SLHC campaign provides an example in its perspective to fight the battles as they actually present themselves concretely. As the SLHC website points out, by successfully defending the local services, the working class and people are actually engaged in defending the whole NHS.

The People's Commission The government is appealing against the judicial review decision, and the appeal is being heard in the High Court on October 28 and 29. The Campaign emphasises that regardless of the outcome of the appeal, the fight to save our hospitals goes on. “Even if we win the appeal,” the SLHC says, “we know there are huge threats facing Lewisham Hospital in the future. These threats come from massive funding cuts to all hospitals and healthcare facilities; toxic Private Finance Initiative payments and privatisation of NHS services.” There are also signs that the government intends to widen the powers of Trust Special Administrators, the issue at the heart of the legal argument in the judicial review.

This emphasises the importance of adopting a political outlook in each battle the people are undertaking to defend the health service. The SLHC outlines some of the wider threats involved. The strategy document says, “We recognise that Lewisham Hospital cannot be safe unless the NHS is safe; that the threats to Lewisham Hospital are part of a wider attack on the NHS (cuts, privatisation, and Private Finance Initiatives (PFI)); that a victory in one area is a victory for all; that solidarity with campaigners in other areas is vital; and that we have to take up and campaign on the wider issues that threaten Lewisham as part of the NHS.”

Lewisham Victory Parade - The Fight Goes On! At the same time, as the strategy document emphasises, “Our strength is our focus on Lewisham: success in Lewisham will inspire campaigns elsewhere to fight on to defend their hospitals and services. The Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign will be a catalyst to other campaigns.”

On the significance of the battle against privatisation in the context of the merger which has taken place between Lewisham and Queen Elizabeth, Woolwich (QEH) hospitals to create a new NHS Trust, the strategy document has this to say:

“Looking at recent changes in healthcare policy, accelerated since the coming into force of the Health and Social Care Act, where private companies have been invited to wield the axe, it would send a mixed message to oppose an NHS organisation running two local hospitals along with community services.

“Alternative unaccountable providers of healthcare are more likely to decimate local services, cut jobs and conditions and erode workforce unity, as has been happening in the drug and alcohol sector locally. The drive for marketisation and cuts does not come from a merged Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust it comes from the
On Saturday January 26, 25,000 people march
through Lewisham to save Lewisham hospitalGovernment via the Department of Health and the TSA. Adopting a stance on a trust or its merger is not the best way to save the NHS or to save services in Lewisham Hospital, when our biggest threats are governments and their policies, and private health care. The merger will bring together two NHS trusts and community health services in Lewisham to create a bigger NHS trust. Many staff at QEH feel this is a better alternative than the fate that could have awaiting them, namely a Hitchingbrooke style takeover by Circle Health. Reconfiguration pressures exist regardless.”

The working class and people have to take up the aim of fighting to block the government’s strategy of paying the rich. Rather, the government should recognise its obligation to ensure that the right of the monopolies is subordinated to the right of social well-being, and that they must recognise the benefit the monopolies reap from having a healthy workforce at their disposal for which they must pay.

The people have to fight against the arrangements which the government is putting in place to cut the necessary social spending on the health service. It is also the people’s right and duty to elaborate their own solutions in the course of this struggle, doing so with the aim of developing the broadest possible fighting unity. WWIE will continue to report on the campaign and to highlight the issues that it is elaborating in its battles.

The full text of the strategy document can be downloaded [here]

If you would like to get involved in any campaign activities in the coming period, please sign up for the newsletter on any page of the SLHC website
(http://www.savelewishamhospital.com), or click this link:
http://eepurl.com/wM2qT

Defence of Lewisham Hospital Is Defence of the Whole NHS!
Fight to Safeguard the Future of the NHS! Healthcare Is A Right!

LondonOctober 17 saw the third regional strike organised by the NUT and NASUWT, in which tens of thousands of teachers took action in the North East and Cumbria, the South West, South East and London and London regions. There were an estimated 15,000 who marched in London, over 2,500 in Bristol, 2,000 in Brighton, 400 in Portsmouth, 200 in Southampton and 100 in Oxford. Rallies took place in Bristol, Brighton and Durham, as well as at Whitehall. The issue was not simply that the teachers are fighting for the right to a decent pension and for pay and conditions appropriate to their profession, but was also one of upholding the vision of the teachers’ profession for the highest standard of education for all pupils as of right.

Brighton Condemning the attacks on education and teachers by the government, NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates, speaking to cheers and applause at the rally in Durham, said: “Mr Gove will seek to denigrate you, but let’s be clear, NASUWT and NUT members are not the ones damaging children’s education … No teacher has any wish to inconvenience parents or disrupt pupils’ education, but this action is not the failure or due to the unreasonableness of teachers. It is the failure and unreasonableness of the Secretary of State, who day-in, day-out, is disrupting the education of children and young people through his attacks on the teaching profession.” She further pointed out: “Attacks on your pay and working conditions are part of a deliberate strategy to present our education service as broken and failing because its part of the masterplan to privatise our public education service.”

The centre of Brighton was filled with over 2,000 teachers and their supporters from across the city and elsewhere in Sussex, waving placards and shouting slogans. Rachel Henocq, who teaches at Peacehaven Community School near Brighton, said: “I think it’s unfair what the government is doing to education. It’s ruining children’s lives at the moment. Someone has got to take a stand. No one wants to go on strike. I love teaching and I love children.”

SouthamptonFurther reports show that popular support for the strike was shown across the country. In east London, teachers at Barking Abbey School have been leafleting outside since the start of term to explain to parents why they are striking, accusing the government of putting children’s education and future at risk and collecting hundreds of signatures supporting them. The east London teachers joined thousands of others from all over the South East for the march past Downing Street to a protest rally at Westminster’s Emmanuel Centre, assembling at Malet Street at 10.30am. Approximately 445 schools in London boroughs were reported to have been completely closed with 450 partially closed.

Over 471 schools came out on strike in Tyne and Wear, plus more than 200 schools in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Roberta Kirby from Fernhurst Junior School in Portsmouth said political attacks were contributing to a "very difficult working environment". About 120 teachers and union members took part in a march in Southampton. They gathered in Hoglands Park for speeches before walking up Above Bar Street, along London Road to Friends Meeting House. Among those taking part was Gerry Connor, a teacher at Barton Peveril College in Eastleigh. He said education secretary Michael Gove's plans amounted to an "attack on education". He said, "Performance related pay will lead to a system in which the starting pay is £22,000 and you'll have to crawl for the other £14,000. It may work when you first start, but not when you move on. Teachers in their 30s will not be able to live on that.”

DurhamCommenting on the regional strike action in England by the two largest teachers’ unions, Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said:

“Today’s strike action has been a great success and is an indication of the anger and concern that teachers share about the changes this Government is making to the profession. Strike action does of course always come at a price and we are very well aware of the disruption this causes to parents’ working lives as well as their children’s education. Unfortunately, with a Government that will not negotiate on the issues of our dispute over pay, pensions and workload, we have been left with little choice.

Bristol “Make no mistake Michael Gove’s reforms to teachers’ pay are about paying teachers less, not more. A YouGov poll commissioned by the NUT showed that only a quarter of parents (25%) thought schools should set their own pay system with 60% supporting the continuation of a national pay system for teachers.

“We do not want to be on strike but if we do not make teaching attractive there will be huge problems for recruiting and retaining good teachers. Michael Gove has demoralised an entire profession and today’s action is a direct result of his and the Government’s steadfast refusal to accept there are problems that need to be resolved. We urge the Government to set aside their prejudices and talk to the profession for the sake of everyone.”

(BBC, East London Advertiser, Northern Echo, NUT, NASUWT)

On October 17, tens of thousands of teachers held the latest in their series of one-day strikes with 3,492 schools shut or partially closed across much of England in London, Cumbria, the South East, North East and the South West. Previously, the first regional walkout took place in the North West on June 27. Then on October 1 the first wave of the present strike actions was launched at schools in the East Midlands, West Midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside and the east of England.

In a protracted struggle which was described as an historic agreement the NUT and the NASUWT are planning further joint strike actions later. In describing their actions as “Taking a Stand Together” to “protect teachers and defend education”, teachers are saying no to the dismantling of their national pay system, longer school days and years and working longer, paying more and getting less for their pensions, and no to the attack on the education system.

Marching past ParliamentA statement of the Department of Education spokesman underlined the anti-teacher hysteria of the media opposing the strike: “All strikes will do is disrupt parents’ lives, hold back children’s education and damage the reputation of the profession.” But it is clear that it is not the teachers but the government, with Michael Gove’s attacks on teachers’ pay, pensions and conditions in conjunction with his archaic notion of what constitutes education that is in reality “holding back children’s education”.

It is this growing unity of teachers which is a block to the government’s dismantling and privatisation of the education system and the attack on the right to education. The unity of the teachers is not only because teachers have had enough of the attacks on their pay, on their pensions and on their working conditions, but also because they enter the profession to teach and they oppose attacks on education. The government’s anti-social policy on education, as exemplified by Michael Gove, is much hated and despised in the teaching profession as well as with parents and with all who care about the quality of education and children’s future.

Plymouth RallyTeachers are against the imposition of Gove’s so-called core knowledge curriculum in ten subjects at secondary level. Its backward-looking, highly structured content and method of fact learning by rote is aimed at blocking the youth from questioning this imposed consciousness and taking control of their future on their own account. This shows that defence of the teachers’ rights is defence not only of education but also of the right to education and of education in rights! The government’s actions against the teachers is part and parcel of the attempt to dismantle and privatise the education system and attack the right to education which is against the general interests of society and the public good.

WWIE hails the stand of the teachers in taking a stand together in defence of their interests and the right to education. The challenge facing the teachers is to continue to strengthen their unity and their organisation and make their struggle part of a Workers’ Opposition and the fight for the alternative direction for society opening up the path to guarantee the right to education for all.