SAVE ST CROSS - SAVE THE NHS - FROM CONDEM THREAT!

Rugby Against The cuts have helped blow the whistle this week over impending cuts (450 workers including doctors and nurses and also bed closures) at local hospitals and NHS services including St Cross in Rugby  - this before the widely condemned move by health professionals of the ideological led threat to the NHS in the misnamed 'reforms' announced by the CONDEM Government this week that will lead to private companies able to come in and cherry pick NHS services for profit.

Rugby Advertiser - 20th January 2010

MARK PAWSEY MP UNDER WATCH - Perhaps the current Tory MP for Rugby  - Mark Pawsey would be best to remember that the last Tory attack on services at ST Cross resulted in his dad - Jim Pawsey losing his seat!

*Below full Press Release which was also covered in the Warwickshire Evening Telegraph and on Rugby FM

RUGBY AGAINST THE CUTS

PO Box 4123 Rugby CV21 9BJ

http://rugbyagainstthecuts.blogspot.com

rugbyagainstthecuts@googlemail.com

Convenor and Press Officer: Pete McLaren  07881 520626

Treasurer: Julie Weekes           Trade Union Liaison: Roy Sandison; Martin Eversfield

PRESS RELEASE                           For immediate use January 17th 2011

ANGER AT NHS CUTS - HOW WILL RUGBY ST CROSS BE AFFECTED?

Rugby Against the Cuts discussed the leaked cuts proposed to NHS Services in Coventry and Warwickshire at its meeting last week.  There was considerable anger at the proposals.  “The Tories said that public spending cuts would not hit front line NHS services, but we now know otherwise,” spokesperson Pete McLaren said yesterday.  “From the reports we have, some of which have been in the local media, more than 450 frontline staff, including doctors and nurses, will be axed in Coventry and Warwickshire.  Hundreds of support and admin staff will also lose their jobs.  These cuts will have devastating effects on staff and patients. Our local hospitals will not be the same, and what you lose is very difficult to retrieve later on”

The group’s Trade Union Liaison Officer Roy Sandison was concerned at the effect these job losses would have on health workers.  “The Con-Dem Government said it would protect front line services.  Sacking nurses and doctors will not do that, and patients – which is all of us – will clearly suffer.  We do not know the details yet, but we are very concerned about the local impact in Rugby and Warwickshire. How, for example, will Rugby’s St Cross hospital be affected?” he asked

Spokesperson Pete McLaren added, “There do not need to be any cuts to public spending – in the NHS or anywhere else in the public sector.  As we have been saying for some time, cuts are not inevitable.  The country has a debt problem, but that could be resolved by a 5% wealth tax on the richest 10%; reclaiming the £120 billion per year in unpaid taxes that the rich avoid paying legally or illegally; or nationalizing the banks and financial institutions and then using their vast profits to improve our public services.  It is a matter of political choice – and the Tories, with their Lib Dem friends, have decided to make us all suffer rather than hit those who caused the crisis in the first place – the bankers and their friends,” he concluded.

NOTES

• Rugby Against the Cuts was set up by local trade unionists and political activists on September 22^nd.  Officers were elected as above
• Rugby Against the Cuts meets on the second Thursday of every month, 7.30pm, at the Three Horse Shoes, Rugby
• Rugby Against the Cuts can be contacted on 07881 520626, at rugbyagainstthecuts@googlemail.com, or through our web site at http://rugbyagainstthecuts.blogspot.com