That women are fighting at the front and centre of the struggles for an alternative is evidence in itself that their affirmation is inseparably connected with challenging the status quo and is in unity with the fight of the working class for a new society.

There is no question that women are in the front ranks of the fight to provide the rights to health care, education, a livelihood with a guarantee. Everywhere they are taking a stand against the dictate of the rich and their representatives which denies the activation of the human factor/social consciousness.

There is also unity with the working class in the measure of their exploitation, the denial and expropriation of the wealth and value which working women create.

The struggles in which women are at the forefront are also raising directly the issue of empowerment, the right to be the decision-makers, to be political representatives of the pro-social and pro-worker trend. This poses the necessity for democratic renewal of the political processes and institutions.

The present society attempts to downgrade women as human beings, to put them in subordination to men, to reduce their participation to women’s roles. Around the world, their full participation is denied.

What is required is for women’s equality to become a reality. It requires their empowerment, creating the conditions for exercising their equality as part of the whole movement of the working class and all humanity for its emancipation. In other words, fundamental changes are required in society to transform the aspiration for women’s affirmation and equality into the conditions for that affirmation and equality.

Those that are exercising the dictate over society in imposing the anti-social offensive, which is today expressed in the form of the “austerity programme”, are mouthing words that they are listening to women, or are concerned about the
violence and abuse against women and young girls. Yet these forces stand for escalating the conditions which give rise to all the abuses against women. In fact, women are bearing the brunt of this anti-social offensive.

Women are giving the lie to this propaganda through their very actions in fighting for the rights of the whole society. They are taking a courageous stand against the perspective which is being pushed that the issue is to realise individual women’s ambitions to break the “glass ceiling” and take their place as equal partners in the exploitation of society by the big monopolies and the warmongers. Women are taking a crucial stand that No means No! not just on the abuse and exploitation of women and women workers, but on all attacks on society and the public good.

The conclusion is that women must create the conditions for them to take their place in all spheres of society, and in practice, against all the odds that the status quo of capitalist exploitation places on them, they are doing so. Alongside all other sections of society, they are fighting for a change in the direction of society, speaking out in favour of the alternative, and an end to class privilege and all other forms of discrimination.

For the Empowerment of Women and All of Society!
Hail International Women’s Day

On February 27, the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign was instrumental in organising a spirited day of action to oppose Clause 119 (previously 118) of the Care Bill, the “Hospital Closure Clause”, with a large crowd of NHS supporters from many parts of London and outside taking part. A large vulture on a pole – a symbol of this government’s wrecking and dismembering the NHS – was much admired.

Clause 119 was cynically tagged onto the Care Bill by the government in the autumn after the High Court and then the Court of Appeal ruled that plans to severely downgrade services at Lewisham Hospital, as part of the proposals for dealing with an indebted neighbouring trust, the South London Healthcare Trust, were unlawful. The court ruled the plans were unlawful because the legislation for dealing with trusts in severe financial difficulties – the Unsustainable Provider Regime – does not allow the government or the Trust Special Administrator (TSA) appointed to make recommendations to include neighbouring hospitals that are not in financial difficulties. Clause 119 will change this, making any solvent hospital close to a hospital in financial trouble susceptible to downgrades or even closure with only a cursory consultation process.

The day of action started with a petition of nearly 150,000 signatures being handed in to 10 Downing Street by Dr Louise Irvine, Jos Bell and Barbara Veale from the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign (SLHC) and Dr Wendy Savage, Chair of Keep Our NHS Public. Outside 10 Downing Street, Chair of SLHC Louise Irvine said they were handing in the petition of over 145,000 signatures against Clause 119, “the Closure Clause”, which she said is to “fast track hospital closures throughout the country without regard for people’s opinions or the views of local clinicians”.

After the handing in of the petition there was a rally at College Green over the road from the Houses of Parliament at which many speakers from across London expressed their total opposition to this very damaging clause. Jos Bell and Ian Gilmore from SLHC, as well as activists from the Save Hammersmith, Ealing and Charing Cross Hospital campaign, along with Andy Slaughter MP from Hammersmith, were among those who addressed the rally.

Louise Irvine in a powerful and spirited speech pointed out there is no such thing as a “failing hospital” and that “this is language that the government is using”. She said these are hospitals in so-called “deficit” because they are being deliberately underfunded by huge Private Finance Initiative debts, toxic debts which they can never repay and 9% budget cuts on top of that with less and less money being paid to hospitals under the tariff which pays them. She pointed out that the Clause 119 legislation “will allow an unelected bureaucrat to come into the area of a so-called failing hospital and decide to close any hospital anywhere in the region with virtually no public consultation or clinical support. We think this is a recipe for the destruction of the infrastructure of our NHS, so that’s why it is not really about Lewisham anymore, although we spearheaded this fight back; it is about the whole country and the whole of our NHS.” Dr Louise Irvine also announced, to loud cheers, that she is standing as a candidate for the National Health Action Party in the Euro elections in London with the aim of making the NHS an election issue, as well as to raise the issue of exempting the NHS from the US/EU Trade Agreement. She called on people to help with her campaign.

Charlotte Monro from Waltham Forest Save Our NHS who was recently sacked after being a health worker for 26 years for speaking out against health cuts in her area, spoke of how their campaign is finding out about, and challenging decisions being made, and taking them back to the community.

The rally was followed by a meeting in parliament. Andy Burnham, Shadow Health Secretary, praised the Lewisham Hospital Campaign, saying that saving Lewisham hospital was a fantastic victory, but a victory for everybody. He said a future Labour government would repeal the Health and Social Care Act and that “markets were not the answer to health care”. He said the Lewisham Campaign inspired everyone to fight for the NHS.

Gynaecologist Professor Wendy Savage said that solidarity is strength and that if people stand up and fight they can win. Dr Kailish Chand spoke of the growing awareness of the dangers facing the NHS. Caroline Molloy leading campaigner for the NHS and editor of OurNHS also spoke of people’s increasing understanding and concern at the relentless privatisation and deterioration of health services, pointing out that this country had some of the poorest health care services in Europe.

Charlotte Monro, after being greeted by very warm applause, said she brought support from the Waltham Forest Save Our NHS, formed from local Keep Our NHS Public (KONP) and 38 degrees groups. She said that “the campaign against clause 119 is, at heart, about our right as a population to determine what kind of health service we have, and the priorities for our society – and it is about preventing bad decisions with likely disastrous consequences”. Charlotte Monro went on to explain how in their campaign they went to the CCGs, Trust Boards, Scrutiny Committees, the “fragmented range of bodies in which NHS decision making appears to have been located”. The campaign was “asking questions, challenging, getting involved. We are correlating. We are informing and talking with our communities, and we see an important part of our role as supporting our health staff.”

Charlotte Monro explained how six years ago they won their campaign to save Whipps Cross hospital as a fully functioning District General Hospital, and asked what would have happened if Clause 119 had then been in place. She then went on to explain how the Barts Trust, the biggest in the country, is also saddled with the largest PFI debts in the country so that £78million has been cut from the health budget together with the culling and downgrading of hundreds of staff leading to the exodus of many experienced committed staff and the impact of that on staff morale. She related how the previous night there had been a meeting packed with cancer specialists and concerned people from the community about NHS England’s plans to remove five specialist cancer services from East London in Barts Health to Central London in UCLH. Concerns were raised about the impact on other services and that those co-dependencies had not been considered in the proposals (see accompanying post).

Charlotte Monro pointed out: “(These) proposals had seemed like a done deal, with stakeholders told the change was not significant enough to require full consultation. Many of the specialists involved had not been consulted. It is the medical staff, their union, the campaigns that are now making this discussion happen.” She made the following important conclusions: “Health service staff and their unions and professional bodies have a vital role in challenging such proposals, must be fully involved in decision making,” continuing, “We know from experience that when staff, unions, community join together they are a powerful force to defend the future of services and to get decisions right. But we are hearing increasingly across the country of union reps who provide effective challenge and speak out being targeted.” She emphasised, “Clause 119 represents a culture of diktat towards NHS and within it, a direction that has to be stopped.”

Charlotte Monro then went on to explain how this culture of diktat was experienced within the NHS instancing how the Care Quality Commission reported this January on their in-depth inspection of Barts Health Trust stating, that whilst services were generally safe and the staff caring compassionate and committed, the report brought into the open a culture of bullying and fear of consequences among staff if they spoke out. The Care Quality Commission reported: “Morale across the trust is low, with staff being uncertain of their future with the trust and a perception of a closed culture and bullying. Too many members of staff of all levels and across all sites came to us to express their concerns about being bullied. Many only agreed to speak with us if they could be anonymous.”

Charlotte Monro concluded by saying: “This climate is incompatible with health care, with caring service, with quality of care and safety and has to be changed. Staff must be free and safe to give their views, and their unions to organise staff and provide an independent voice. We have to make sure they are”.

Baroness Donaghy from the House of Lords pointed out, to loud applause, that they had overturned this government no less than 81 times! She thanked everyone present for “informing and inspiring us”. Dr Louise Irvine concluded the meeting with a rousing call for unity and action saying that “what really made me overjoyed is the turnout today for this event and its representative nature. Not only do we have people from north, south, east and west London but people from outside London – we have always wanted to make these links.” She mentioned that there were people from the George Elliot Campaign, from Cambridgeshire and Norfolk and a message of support from Mid Staffs. Dr Irvine spoke of the need for a “broad united front of everyone fighting together” saying that “this is the only way we are going to get the kind of movement we need in this country to save our NHS and we don’t have long to do it!”.

Clause 119 is clearly a large step forward in the government’s plans to wreck the NHS and put people’s health care and people’s lives at the mercy of private companies. The February 27 Day of Action showed that people are in motion and determined to fight. The fight against Clause 119 is part of the fight to save the NHS and keep it as a public service, not a means for private profit.

Health Care Is A Right!

http://youtu.be/bYzTqmTKuIY

RCPB(ML) Video: Downing Street to Parliament 27 2 2014

Further actions organised by Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign:

Assemble MONDAY 10 MARCH AT 6-8PM

Outside Parliament on College Green (opp St Stephen’s Gate) and

TUESDAY 11 MARCH 11AM – 12.30 PM

For further details see Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign

Reproduced from London local, a BMA web-space for discussion on local issues, posted January 23, 2014

NHS England is pressing ahead with proposals to move five specialist cancer services from Barts Health to UCLH and cardiac services from the Heart Hospital to Barts Health. GPs and Secondary Care Doctors in East London are concerned that this move will have a number of unintended consequences which will jeopardise patient care and adversely affect recruitment and retention of staff throughout Barts Health. The post explains that 25 of those concerned signed a letter to Sir David Nicholson, outgoing Chief Executive of NHS England, asking him to put the proposals on hold until these issues have been resolved. The letter is reproduced below.

* * * * *

CC Mr Simon Stevens,

Dr Anne Rainsberry, Regional Director NHS England, London.

15th January 2014.

Dear Sir David.

This open letter arises from an unprecedented coming together at an emergency open meeting on the 11th December 2014 of around 60 doctors to discuss plans by NHS England to move some cancer services from Barts Health Trust to University College Hospital London. The majority of attendees were consultants, cancer specialists and their colleagues, working in Barts Health. There were also junior hospital doctors and GPs from the local area and CCG. Senior representatives from NHSE involved in developing cancer services were present.

The meeting expressed concern that the proposal to move five specialist cancer services from Barts Health to UCLH, as set out in “Improving Specialist Cancer and Cardiovascular Services in North and East London and West Essex”, would lead to a number of unintended consequences which have not been properly considered and will not, as they stand, be in the interest of the generality of patients in North East London and West Essex. The clear consensus of the doctors at the meeting (many of whom had not been consulted about the proposals) was that, as presented, the proposals were unacceptable and needed to be re-examined with the help of all staff grades and types; there was also a need for a wider public discussion.

Barts Health Trust, comprising Whipps Cross, Newham General, The London Chest, The Royal London, Barts and Mile End hospitals and Tower Hamlets Community Health Services, serves one of the most deprived and multi-ethnic populations in the UK. Services to meet the special needs of this population have been built up over many years by staff teams in these hospitals.

The concerns expressed at the meeting can be summarized under six main headings:

Acute Services at Barts Health

There was particular concern that the move could destabilize The Royal London as the major trauma and acute centre for East London and beyond.

For example, the victim of a road traffic accident who has incurred a brain injury or ruptured internal organ may need the specialist skills of the cancer neurosurgeon or upper GI cancer surgeon: such staff are of course trained in acute surgical care and serve on emergency cover rotas. Emergency rotas in neurosurgery and general surgery at Barts Health rely heavily on cancer as well as non-cancer surgeons, and it is unclear who would perform these emergency procedures at Barts Health if these surgeons were no longer there.

Retention and Recruitment of Key Staff at Barts Health

Nursing and other key operating theatre, anaesthetic and ITU staff would lose skill if they were not regularly involved in the care of patients with the complexity of surgery which cancer sufferers often require and currently undergo at Barts Health; it was feared that many would leave Barts Health to obtain such experience elsewhere in London, jeopardizing the care of all patients throughout the Trust and threatening the training of students and staff. Furthermore, losing these cancer services would be likely to impact negatively on the recruitment of doctors, nurses and theatre staff throughout Barts Health.

Current Cancer Outcomes at Barts Health

It was a concern that the information on which NHSE had made these decisions might not accurately reflect the excellent outcomes, on an international scale, of the relevant cancer services at Barts Health, or their large patient throughputs; nor was it felt that the decisions made by NHSE took adequate account of the contributions of the surgical cancer specialists to more comfortable palliative care for those for whom curative treatment is not possible.

Multiple Morbidities of Barts Health Patients

The East End of London has a greater concentration of deprivation than most of the rest of London, is multi ethnic and its population has higher rates of multiple health problems including diabetes, TB and heart disease. Cancer patients often suffer from other conditions such as heart and lung disease (and cardiac patients from cancer), so centralisation may disadvantage patients who have more than one medical condition. Patients from East London and West Essex would be adversely affected if Barts Health no longer house, mainly under one roof, all relevant specialists; conversely UCLH cancer patients with cardiac problems would not have access to the full range of cardiac services, including surgery, should they need them.

Interhospital Travel and Transfers for Barts Health Patients

Many patients, particularly those for whom English is not a first language, have difficulty travelling within the Barts Health area, let alone into central London. Sharing patients in two different mega-trusts invites confusion and problems in communication, risking patients becoming lost in the system and further compromising patient care. Consultants working across trusts reported that they had already had this experience with between-hospital referrals. Clearly, continuity of care for cancer patients diagnosed in Barts Health and sent to UCLH for surgery would be undermined. Hospital records would easily be lost, and multidisciplinary team meetings (MDTs) between carers at the different hospitals would be impracticable and/or expensive. There would also be a risk of pre-operative investigations being expensively reduplicated after inter-hospital transfers.

Fears that Other Services Will Be Transferred in the Future

Finally, there were concerns that this proposal heralds further centralization of other services in the future, threatening care closer to home for the people of North East London and West Essex, and therefore patient choice, quality and cost of care.

Conclusions of Meeting

In summary, the meeting was clear that the proposals had unintended consequences and would introduce problems that had not been adequately thought through; it was concluded that the plans were unacceptable as drafted. The meeting called on you as Chief Executive of NHS England to reconsider the re-organisation of specialist cancer and cardiac services in central and east London and Essex.

Supporters from Venezuela and South America were joined by members of the RMT union at a rally in Trafalgar Square on March 5 on the first anniversary of the death of Hugo Chavez and in support of the elected Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.

Leading Progressive Women Send Solidarity from Britain to Venezuela on International Women’s Day

In recent weeks, there has been a wave of violence from minority, extremist elements of the Venezuelan opposition following the launch of a campaign for La Salida (“The Ousting”) of the elected government. In response to this, a large march of women recently took place calling for an end to the violence and supporting Government calls for peace and dialogue. For International Women’s Day, leading women supporters of VSC have sent a message of solidarity to women in Venezuela, including the social movement of Women for Peace and Life and the Women’s Ministry.

The statement has been published on the leading Labour movement blog Left Futures. Signatories include Professor Doreen Massey, the General Secretary of the CND Kate Hudson, the General Secretary of Liberation Maggie Bowden, plus Diana Holland Gail Cartmail, who are both Assistant General Secretaries of Unite.

It reads: “We have been inspired by the huge gains made by women as part of the wider social progress in Venezuela over the past decade, with women playing a leading role at all levels of society.

“On International Women’s Day we deplore the recent wave of violence from minority and extremist sections of Venezuela’s right-wing opposition, that has left a number of people dead, many injured and has seen physical assaults on government institutions, unleashed as a consequence of the proclaimed objective of “the ousting” of the elected government.

“We welcome the Women for Peace march that took place on 22nd February supporting the Government’s call for peace and dialogue to resolve differences rather than violence. Andreína Tarazón, Minister of Women’s Affairs and Gender Equality in Venezuela, stated that “We march to demand an end to vandalism and violence, and [to demand] respect for the Constitution.

“We join UNASUR (the Union of South American Nations) in both condemning the wave of violence and in supporting calls for dialogue and peace in Venezuela and oppose any external intervention in Venezuela.”

The statement is signed by Shelly Asquith, President, Student Union, University of the Arts London, Chair, NUS London member of 2013 Youth Student Delegation to Venezuela; Maggie Bowden, General Secretary, Liberation (formerly the Movement for Colonial Freedom) VSC EC; Gail Cartmail, Unite the Union, Assistant General Secretary, Services member of first Trade Union Congress Delegation to Venezuela ; Siobhan Endean, Unite, National Officer for Equalities, with responsibility for Women; Sian Errington, VSC EC/ Women for Venezuela convenor; Jayne Fisher, South East Region TUC International Committee VSC EC; Diana Holland, Unite, Assistant General Secretary, Equalities Transport; Kate Hudson, General Secretary Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament VSC EC; Joy Johnson, Political Communicator VSC EC; Professor Doreen Massey; Karen Mitchell. VSC Vice-Chair RMT; Barbara Ntumy, NUS Women’s Committee Black Students’ Committee Student Friends of Venezuela; Pia Westin, Unite VSC; Jude Woodward, part of the GLA team that arranged Hugo Chavez visit to London VSC EC.

Women for Venezuela at Major Solidarity Conference on May 10 – Hugo Chavez’s Legacy The Ongoing Transformation of Venezuela

VSC Women for Venezuela will host a session at this event at the University of London Union on May 10. Prominent women participants include guests from Venezuela plus H.E. Esther Armenteros, Cuban Ambassador; H.E. Alicia Castro, Argentinian Ambassador- Guissell Morales-Echaverry, Nicaraguan Embassy; Bethan Jenkins, Welsh Assembly Member; Christine Blower, NUT General Secretary; Lindsey German, Stop the War Coalition Convenor many more. Organised by VSC with thanks to initial supporters Thompsons Solicitors, UNISON, UCATT, Verso, Alborada, Education for Tomorrow, Liberation, Morning Star The Prisma.

Registration is only £10/£7 (concessions) for the day. You can register online today:
http://t.ymlp228.net/mmjjaoaumhqmanaqsavaqswj/click.php