Protest calls for Western Trust Board to resign

by Gareth Cross

There have been calls for the Western Trust board to resign instead of supporting a planned £12.5m cuts.

The call came from veteran civil rights campaigner and former People Before Profit Foyle MLA Eamonn McCann at a 'Stop the Cuts' protest this week.

Around 200 people attended the protest on Tuesday evening outside the Verbal Arts Centre in Derry.

The protest took place prior to the trust holding a public consultation meeting on the planned cuts.

A number of groups and were present at the protest including UNISON, People Before Profit, NIPSA, the Northwest Forum of People With Disabilities and Independent councillors.

The trust has been directed to cut £12.5m from its budget before the end of next March.

Amongst the proposals to cut money would be a reduction in elective (non-emergency) surgery and reducing spending on locum staff.

The Trust has also proposed to merge the William Street and Rectory Field Residential Homes in Derry and raise car parking charges at Trust hospitals.

Former People Before Profit MP candidate for Foyle Shaun Harkin led the protest which featured a number of speakers from a wide range of groups.

"This consultation is sham, the cuts have already been decided," he said.

"They are asking us to tell them what cuts to make to a health service on its knees.

"Waiting times are out of control, staff are overworked, underpaid and a cap is in place.

"We can't take anymore cuts, lives are on the line if these cuts go through. We are here to send a message that they are completely unacceptable."

UNISON

Niall McCarroll from UNISON also spoke at the protest and said that the cuts would also affect the community sector and called for strike action.

"What's happening is not acceptable," he said.

"If cuts are made the first place that will feel them is the community sector. People are already dealing with zero hour contracts and no job security. We need strike action against all health sector and community sector cuts.

He continued: "We are not asking for that much, just decent jobs, security and livelihoods for people."

Addressing the protest, Eamonn McCann called on people to unite against the cuts.

"A few months ago I heard Len McCluskey, General Secretary of Unite saying the only way we would defeat these cuts would be civil disobedience," he said.

"There's going to have to be public sector and trade unionist industrial action.

"If we are to make this effective it should be co-ordinated, lets all rise up together."

He said that he personally knew of people who had been affected by health cuts.

"You only have to walk up any street in Derry to meet people who will be sorely effected," said Mr McCann.

"I know someone who has been waiting three years for two knee replacements.

"They have been in acute pain for years.

"A few weeks ago I was contacted by a 39-year-old woman who had been told she was no longer eligible for fertility treatment.

"To me it seems like her age should make the treatment more urgent."

Mr McCann said that the Trust board should do the right thing and resign.

"They should all resign from their positions and tell the Department of Health that they are not going to be used as rubber stamps and will not do the dirty work for the Tories.

"That would send an electric message, we need mass resignations.

"We can come together and do things about this."

He said that people needed to evoke the spirit of the civil rights movement to fight the cuts.

"We should not take it lying down unless we are lying down on the Craigavon Bridge," said Mr McCann.

"It is coming up to the 50th anniversary and we need to bring it back to the civil rights movement.

"The trust say they have to break even? That's business talk.

"Why should a health facility have to break even. Do the fire service have to break even?

"There is reason for hope, a mass campaign cannot be ignored. We need to save the health service and stop these cuts ourselves."