Our NHS at 70: March to demand an end to health cuts
By a Tayside NHS worker and Unison shop steward
The creation of the National Health Service in 1948 was and remains one of the most important achievements of the working class, trade union and labour movement. A free and fully-funded NHS for all was a huge victory, and is rightly something we need to defend today.
For decades, successive governments at Westminster and Holyrood – Tory, Labour and SNP – have under-resourced the NHS. Tory, Liberal and Labour politicians introduced hugely costly PFI/PPP projects. Today, the SNP government are guilty of holding down NHS pay and presiding over a growing health crisis locally and nationally.
In 2016/17 NHS boards in Scotland made cuts of £400 million to budgets. The recent winter admissions crisis led to the head of the BMA in Scotland to say; “there is simply not the funding or plans in place to go on as we are.
The director of the RCN union in Scotland, Theresa Fyffe said: “The bottom line is that Scotland does not have the nursing staff it needs to care for everyone who requires it in a safe and effective way.”
Tayside’s crisis
Perhaps nowhere is the crisis as acute as in NHS Tayside. Cuts of over £200 million are currently being carried out. That’s £1 million a week, every week, for five years.
There is a crisis in mental health provision. Acute psychiatric units in Perth and Angus have been closed and services centralised into Dundee. But at the cost of increasing demand and not enough staff or resources to match the needs of people.
GP provision in Dundee and across Scotland is getting worse not better.
The ever-increasing workload on NHS staff is beyond belief. At the same time health workers have seen their wages slashed as a result of year-on-year pay caps set way below the real levels of inflation.
The demonstration in Dundee on July 7th to defend the NHS in its 70th year, organised by the local trade union council, is a great opportunity to do two things: 1. To celebrate what the NHS means to us and our families. 2. To demand that politicians and health boards stop acting as a conveyer belt for cuts and start fighting to rebuild an NHS fit for the 21st century.
