This is the editorial of the print-version of Vital Signs no.4. We will distribute 1,000 copies at Southmead hospital and the BRI. Please support the print costs and donate here.
While the Labour government has billions of pounds to boost the profits of arms manufacturers, their austerity measures might result in 100,000 job losses across the NHS. It’s not only the central government though, it’s also the Councils saying that there is no money and their only solution is to cut our health services. At Southmead, they’re threatening to close the Acer Detox unit, the only NHS run detox unit in Bristol. At UHBW, the new contract for the sexual health clinic will result in significant job cuts of around half of the 90 workers there- you can read a longer interview on our website. (And there are daily things that don’t get done: the only shower in the male bay of ward 10a has been broken for weeks – just get it fixed!)
Teams that have worked together for years that have a wealth of collective knowledge are broken up and the skills and services that they have developed together are destroyed. Close colleagues are being made to compete for future jobs. It isn’t just these small but vital services and clinics that are facing the axe though. It has recently been announced that the bosses of the Trusts in Bristol plan to cut around 2% of the total workforce. This amounts to 211 jobs at NBT and 300 jobs at UHBW. They say that this will only affect “non-clinical” roles, but how can we separate the work of a receptionist or an IT worker from the work of the nurse or the HCA? These workers do necessary admin work that would otherwise be pushed onto the more “clinical” staff. We can also be sure that they won’t cull higher-up managers who tell us that we aren’t working hard or fast enough. What we all do know is that this means that the remaining workers will be squeezed more and that patient care will suffer as a result.
This concerns us all!
Many of the fellow hospital workers that we spoke to were not aware that the Acer unit and the sexual health clinic were threatened with cuts, most didn’t even know they existed. We can’t blame them! Hospital management puts pressure on these workers not to talk to the media. The unions haven’t organised an open struggle to defend these services. These co-workers deserve our solidarity, that’s a question of simple decency amongst workers, but all of us will be affected by these cuts. If there is no detox unit, people will be washed up at A&E or have shitty withdrawals on hep wards. If there are cuts to sexual health services people will end up sicker on general wards. No shit, Sherlock. If commissioners, politicians and management see that they can get away with cuts in one area, they will be more confident when it comes to cutting wider services or turning them over to be rinsed by the private sector.
They are all responsible!
Our co-workers at the Detox unit and Unity sexual health clinic don’t feel as though they can question the decision of budget cuts, once it is made. They also don’t know who to put pressure on, because everyone blames everyone else for the cuts: Southmead hospital management blames Avon and Wiltshire Partnership Trust for the cuts, in turn, AWP blame Bristol City Council. UHBW management blames the commissioners, and the commissioners blame the government. We have to stop their blame game and put pressure on them all. We need jobs, our patients need services and it’s up to management and politicians to sort out finances amongst themselves. The question of vital health services can’t be left to the logic of cuts and profit. Only as united health workers and working class patients can we impose a real common sense and an alternative plan for the crisis.
Workers and patients, we need an open struggle to defend ourselves!
So far, workers at Acer and at Unity haven’t had the confidence to meet together and organise a common struggle. This is a shame. Shortly after the cuts at Unity sexual health clinic became public at the end of March, a protest of 200 people against the disability benefit cuts / Personal Independence Payments took place in Bristol town centre. This would have been a good chance to join with another struggle against austerity. This was a missed opportunity to build the necessary alliances to impose alternatives, but there will be many more in the days to come. We need to be prepared and willing to take these opportunities in future. Another problem is that so far, none of the trade unions has suggested any forms of resistance to the job cuts!
Why is there a lack of confidence and activity even when our own jobs are at risk?
We might lack confidence, because we don’t know about what workers have already achieved before us. There are many examples where health workers and patients have successfully defended jobs and services. In the UK in the 1970s to the 1990s hospitals threatened with closure were occupied and run under worker-patient control, until the politicians reversed the closure. More recently in France, workers and patients defended a mental health unit from cuts and workers in Buenos Aires managed the same for a whole hospital. In Germany, midwives and women successfully campaigned to keep a maternity clinic open. In Chicago, workers and community groups enforced the re-opening of a trauma centre. In Bristol, local community action managed to defend a dental clinic in St.Pauls.
Common struggle against future cuts
We can learn from history and from workers in other regions. Workers and working class users of health services from different sectors can come together and make plans for common struggle. This is not rocket science, this is basic self-defence. We are happy to help coordinate meetings that aim to build such a movement – drop us an email if you are interested.
