An estimated 5,000 people marched through the streets of Islington last Saturday with one intention: To ‘Save Our Whittington’ from plans to close the Accident and Emergency department and maternity ward at the Archway hospital. The crowd had a wide spectrum of local residents from Hetty Bower (pictured to right), aged 104, down to parents with newly born babies born at the Whittington. Everyone came out to passionately defend a National Health Service free at the point of use from a plan of creeping privatization.
The Whittington’s maternity unit has been rated one of the safest places in the whole of Britain to have your baby. The A&E alone deals with over 80,000 emergencies per year and the hospital as a whole handles many consultations and elective surgeries. Closure of the A&E would cut off the lifeblood of the hospital and it would eventually wither and die. Administrators have used this back door tactic before when closing other hospitals but this time the residents of Islington are not standing idly by. The demonstration, accompanied by a brass band on an open top bus, made their way from Highbury Corner to the hospital, while passing cars tooted horns in solidarity.
Outside the hospital, speeches were made from many, including campaigners, health experts, local Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn who is spear heading the campaign to save the hospital, Gary Heather from the Islington Trades Union council, and a militant trade unionist from the local Holloway bus garage who stated that if workers from the Whittington were forced to go on strike then he would ask his fellow bus drivers to participate in solidarity action.
Despite the huge community outcry, the regional NHS planning group remain unaccountable and unconcerned, as they continue their plans to centralise services of two major hospitals, thus leaving Haringey and Islington with no major A&E departments of their own. Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn (pictured to right) has raised the issue several times in parliament, and continues to “pressurize ministers and the House to understand that health officials have no business making plans for reducing expenditure, and absolutely no business taking away crucial local services that are so obviously loved and valued by everybody”.
The demonstration sent a clear message to the administrators that the hospital is vital to the local community and must keep its major services. As a local resident, I believe that we must all work together to defend the Whittington and to defend our NHS against creeping privatisation. We demand that the Health Secretary acts now to safeguard the Whittington’s future
Please sign the online petition by visiting the campaign website:
http://www.savethewhittington.org.uk/
