Big win in hospital fight
WORKERS, NOV 2007 ISSUE
CAMPAIGNERS fighting to stop Whipps Cross University Hospital in Waltham Forest, northeast London, being downgraded were celebrating in October after a key National Health Service report concluded that there was no alternative but for it to stay as an acute general hospital.
The fight began over a year ago, after an NHS London review process, "Fit for the Future", threw the whole future of the hospital into jeopardy. The local health chiefs in charge of the review now stand accused, in the report by NHS Director of Clinical Excellence Professor Sir George Alberti, of putting financial systems ahead of clinical need and patient care – precisely what the campaigners, from Save Whipps Cross Hospital, had been saying.
Driven by budget deficits and the need to ensure a steady supply of lucrative contracts to a new PFI-built hospital, Queen's in Romford, the health chiefs hatched a plan to strip Whipps Cross of a number of its patients and move them across northeast London to Queen's. This would have resulted in downgrading Whipps from its current status as a District General Hospital, leaving it, perhaps, just as an Ambulance and Emergency centre.
Once it was clear what was going on, local doctors, consultants, nurses and other health professionals joined with residents and trade unionists to begin a united campaign to save their hospital. With united support across all political parties – nominally at least...in fact the Labour Party took no part in campaign activities – the Save Whipps Cross Hospital campaign organised a string of public meetings, and staged the largest demonstration seen in the borough for decades.
But campaigners warn that the fight is not over. Whipps still needs £100 million to modernise its buildings, and health workers are seeing continuing cuts in the local health service, as well as moves by the local Primary Care Trust to privatise services. "Waltham Forest Primary Care Trust appears to be retreating from the direct provision of healthcare services to a commissioning model – and local community services are being decimated," said a statement on the campaign's website.
Campaign Secretary and Whipps consultant Alan Hakim said, "Whipps will only be able to deliver the first rate service that local people deserve if it is fully funded and working with properly resourced community health services."
Management consultants Meridian are recommending £750,000 cuts in district nursing. Campaign Chair Charlotte Monro urged, "We need to be as active in defence of our community services as we have been in defence of our local hospital."