Details of protests:
Wigan: Friday 19 January, Wigan town hall (time TBC)
Trafford: Tuesday, 23rd January 6.30 pm, Trafford Town Hall, Talbot Road Stretford M32 0TH
Manchester: Tuesday 30 January, 10am Manchester town hall
All around Greater Manchester a series of demonstrations demanding action to fix the NHS crisis are now being planned. Lobbies outside meetings this month of politicians at borough and Greater Manchester level will culminate in local campaigners travelling to London to join the “Fix it now” demonstration there on Sat 3 February. Please contact us for further details
We are demanding an immediate increase in funding together with a reversal of the costly wasteful privatisation and marketisation measures by successive governments that drain NHS funding away from where it should be spent. We are writing to politicians in advance of the protests to demand answers.
Manchester Coach to the Emergency NHS Demonstration
Saturday 3rd February 2018
It’s crucial that as many people as possible get to this important demonstration. Every single person there will make a difference. The NHS is undoubtedly in crisis and huge numbers of us out on the streets protesting will put big pressure on the Tory government. Under their watch we’ve seen the systematic underfunding of the NHS, thousands of unfilled jobs, dangerous staffing levels, loss of nursing bursary, reductions in 14,000 beds, and forced closures of dozens of NHS wards and facilities. This is either utter Tory incompetence or a deliberate strategy to run the NHS down so the public will think there is a need for privatization. (With the collapse of Carillion this week, the Tory mantra that the private sector can better run our public services has been seriously undermined). We cannot let this continue.
We’ve therefore organized a coach from Manchester Chorlton St Bus/coach station. Please follow this link to the Facebook event, which will tell you how to book a ticket. Tickets are priced as follows:
£25 waged
£15 low waged
There are also a very limited amount of free tickets (£5 deposit). See below for our crowdfunder as we’re hoping to raise money so we can provide more free tickets.
Please book tickets asap and join us on Saturday the 3rd. Plus get your friends and family to come along too. Our NHS needs you all!
This is our national office’s Facebook event here with details of the demonstration.
Help Others Get to The NHS Demonstration
We’ve set up a crowdfunder so we can cover the cost of getting protesters cheaply to the NHS demonstration in London. Can you Donate? Maybe you aren’t able to go yourself? Your donation will make a difference to someone on Universal Credit, who is low waged or maybe homeless. Anything you give will be much appreciated.
Please donate here. There is also a post about this on out Facebook page so if you could share this too, that would be great!
The actions organised by Greater Manchester Keep Our NHS Public, for which spokesperson Pia Feig said:
Greater Manchester residents have been left to face this winter with an inadequate NHS, which some of its senior practitioners have warned us, is a dangerous service to use. We already know that the welcomed decline in mortality rates in Greater Manchester, between 2001 and 2010, has now been reversed (significantly because of a lack of nurses.)
Long term public service recruitment and incomes policies have left our local hospitals and clinics seriously understaffed, with desperately tired staff trying to cover for vacant posts. GPs and primary care staff are severely overstretched, not being able to keep up with their increasing responsibilities for the health of residents, whilst receiving inadequate funding to do so.
The privatisation of social care has left our elderly population, who need residential support and home care, to the vagaries of the market: many private care homes have been deemed inadequate or in need of improvement, whilst others are closing their doors to those in need. Yet 3.5% of hospital beds in Greater Manchester are needed by people who cannot receive adequate personal care at home.
And now all the thousands of people who were waiting for their operations in early 2018, often in great pain and distress, have been told that they will have to wait even longer. The NHS is not there for them in their time of need-surely a denial of the basic principle of NHS!
This crisis is not the result of a sudden epidemic: it is the result of year on year decisions, to cut the number of hospital beds in the Greater Manchester; to restrict training for nurses, particularly community nursing posts and to make the NHS absorb inflationary pressure – especially from PFI scheme payments for all the new buildings in primary and secondary health care.
So what are Greater Manchester’s politicians going to do about it?
Keep our NHS public Greater Manchester 