Locals urged to support People's March for the NHS
Did you know that Hackney is suffering cuts of £17 million a year to health and social care?
Did you know that around 14 doctors’ surgeries in Hackney and City will be at risk of closure within the next four years because of the withdrawal of Minimum Practice Income Guarantee? That’s the money once paid to surgeries in deprived areas to even-out higher costs incurred where poverty is a major cause of ill-health.
Did you know there’s no legal obligation for maternity services or children’s services to be provided free of charge?
We live in one of the country’s hardest-hit areas when it comes to health cuts.
This summer the People’s March for the NHS takes place across England, covering 23 towns and cities and 300 miles over three weeks. It passes through Stoke Newington (Clissold Park) on Saturday September 6th from 11.45am-12.45pm.
Stoke Newington mum, graphic designer and 999 campaigner Catherine McArdle is among those joining the march. Her husband is a hospital consultant, her sister is a GP and her sister-in-law is head of the NHS sector of the GMB Trade Union. She’s desperately worried about the impact the cuts will have.
In a blog for StokeyParents.com she urged local parents to show their support by joining the campaign: “Whether you want to walk one mile, ten or the whole journey - we want you to join us. If you can’t march please just be there to cheer on the mums.
She added: "The People's March for the NHS was born from a shared anger which the a group of mums from Darlington felt about what is happening to the NHS, at the hands of the government, since the Health and Social Care Act 2012:
• billions of pounds of NHS services have been put on the market.
• 70% of NHS contracts have been awarded to the private sector.
• 10% of A&E units have closed.
• One third of NHS walk-in centres have closed.
• Half of our 600 ambulance stations are earmarked for closure.
• General practice is at crisis point, with stress and burnout forcing GPs to move abroad.
• GP surgeries all over the UK are facing closure.
• Private providers may turn down patients with they think are not profitable.
• The following services are no longer required by law to be free of charge: maternity services; children services;
illness prevention services; ambulance services; mental health services; dental public health and sexual health
services.
• While our NHS staff are being pushed to the limit, politicians and journalists constantly put out bad news stories to
undermine our confidence in the NHS.
• The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) could mean that the NHS is carved up and sold to big
global corporations.
• The NHS is being deliberately pushed to the edge of collapse to make it ready for privatization.
"This is all despite the fact that a recent report by the Commonweath Fund, a respected Washington-based foundation, declared the UK’s NHS to be the best health service in the world. Per capita health-spending in the NHS is the second lowest of all the richest countries, and they save more lives per pound spent than any other country, except Ireland.
We want to see a repeal of the 2012 Health and Social Care Act and we are aiming for four things:
• Reverse the closure of NHS services
• Halt the privatisation of NHS care
• Return responsibility for delivering NHS services to the Secretary State for Health
• To inform the public what is happening to the NHS and build support for the NHS"
The walk will follow in the footsteps of the Jarrow marchers back in 1936 and is being organised by a group of mums.
For more information visit www.999callfornhs.org.uk