MORE THAN a dozen Blairite ministers have so far been forced to break ranks with their cabinet colleagues and lend their names to popular local protests against cuts and privatisation in the National Health Service in their constituencies.
But despite the servile loyalty of the health union leaders to the Labour Party, we can be sure few if any of them will be joining the local demonstrations and rallies called on March 3 by NHS Together - a coordination of all of the health unions and professional bodies.
Once again it's New Labour that will be out of step with public opinion, as platforms rallying support for campaigns to keep local hospitals, maternity units, elderly care and mental health services open feature a speakers from a very broad mix of all other parties - including Greens, Lib Dems, and even a sprinkling of Tories who cannot IRAN Apocalypse p12-13 March 3 national resist a golden opportunity to stick the boot into Blair on an issue that has until now been a votewinner for Labour, but which Hewitt and Blair have turned into a liability. The nonsense of Blair's reforms is inescapable -and the driving force behind cuts and closures. • A brand new hospital in the New Forest, to be paid for by the NHS, is handed over to the management a private company before it even opens: • In Oxfordshire a long-standing NHS orthopaedic hospital which has just spent millions on rebuilding work faces the threat of closure or merger as private sector treatment centres hijack the simplest routine cases - and the funding for them • Two Essex NHS Trusts have scrapped plans for new hospitals because they face massive losses under thenew system of payment by results: • West Hertfordshire residents fight the "centraliTime to tear up the "butcher's apron' pages 8-9 Day of Action called
NHS to a private treatment centre.
E23billion of NHS -h going in Campaigners release balloons to symbolise the billions wasted through NHS privatisation
Poland, Britain -pages 10-11 profits over patients
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