'Day X for the NHS' Demonstration

More than 500 people followed the call to demonstrate in defense of the NHS on Wednesday 9th. They included many medical staff concerned at NHS cuts which will close hospitals and privatise the NHS by stealth. The march started at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, and ended at the St Bartholomew's Hospital in Spitafields.

The march passed trough The City, staging a protest outside the RBS in Aldgate, and a sit down blockade of Bishopsgate. Meanwhile, most bankers hid in their offices or ran out the back doors so as not to be seen, although Deutsche Bank staff heckled protestors with shouts of "get a job" whilst waving wads of money from the windows.

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Pic by medic

Background info:

Around 630 jobs and 100 beds are set to go across Barts and The London NHS Trust. £15 million of cuts are to be made at the Homerton Hospital. The Mental Health Trust is announcing further cuts. While the NHS faces over 120,000 job cuts, and a historic attack in the form of the White Paper which will allow private companies to swoop in and run our health service on the basis of profit, the bankers continue to award themselves obscene bonuses. And the rich are left to evade their tax.

But there is an alternative. Resistance is starting to grow.

Since the beginning of 2011, we have sent the first strike in the NHS against the cuts – at Southwark children’s services – when speech and language therapists set an example of how to fight.

Over 300 marched at the Homerton Hospital, bringing the community and health workers together, and in less than a week’s notice, around 300 health workers and NHS users protested outside the Royal London, and blocked Whitechapel road at the height of rush hour traffic.