North City Health Action Group formed

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday May 23, 2003 16:07 by Joe Carolan

40 people came together to form a Health Action Group for the North Inner City last Thursday in Phibsboro. With job losses, bed closures and cancellations of operations on the way in the Mater Hospital, local people are coming together with trade unionists in the health service to mobilise community support for the coming fightback, which the Irish Nurses Organisation is preparing for in June.

Jo Tully, Shop Steward with the INO in St James’, outlined the horrific nature of the cutbacks on the hospitals. “Emergency beds are already full- with the result that there are no beds when urgent cases arrive at A and E. There are now queues for the trolleys that are waiting for beds.” Jo also talked about the anger of rank and file nurses, and their willingness to stand up and take strike action against Michael Martin’s attacks.

Tommy Mc Donald, a SIPTU Shop Steward at the Mater, spoke about the reality behind the cutbacks there. 104 beds to close, threatened job losses of 160 positions across the board, would mean even more pressure on the already strained A and E unit, a situation which one Mater consultant has compared to “decommissioning the lifeboats on an already sinking ship”.

Joe Carolan, SWP, called for an end to the two tier health system, and a properly funded free universal health care system for all. This was echoed by Joe Costello, TD from the Labour Party. Local reps from the Socialist Party, the Greens and Sinn Fein also attended.. The Health Action Group then debated how was this to be attained- a hopeful Fianna Fail local election candidate saying that a TV3 poll showed that people did not want to pay more tax. The audience rounded on him, saying too right, the vast majority of tax revenue raised in this country came from PAYE workers. Multinationals and big business only pay 12.5% corporate tax- many of the richest in Irish society were tax exiles in the Bahamas or Gibraltar. The rich are the ones who must pay if we are to have a proper health service.

The North City Health Action Group is putting up a weekly picket at the A and E entrance to the Mater, every Saturday at 1pm, determined to fight for every job and bed. Links are being made between the health unions and the community- people in Monaghan and Louth have already shown that thousands of people are ready to march and support strikes to defend our hospitals. The North City group is hoping that other communities across Dublin will now begin to set up action groups in their areas, to organise and support the coming revolt this Summer.

North City Health Action Group-
Contact Joe at 087 9032281
Picket outside A+E entrance, Mater Hospital- 1 to 2 pm every Saturday.