HOMERTON HOSPITAL STAFF PROTEST

Health workers from Homerton hospital protested against NHS job cuts and ward closures this week, writes Chloe Lambert.

Hundreds of angry nurses, therapists, doctors and advocates gathered outside Hackney town hall on Saturday afternoon, before marching on to Homerton hospital. The demonstration was part of a national day of action called by health worker unions across the country.

Gill George, Amicus union representative and staff secretary at Hackney and City Primary Care Trust, was at the protest. She said cost cutting was already taking its toll on patients at Homerton.

Ms George said: “We have got women who have just given birth and cannot get a cup of tea because the hospital cannot provide milk. Some are being discharged by the hospital six hours after they have give birth because of bed cuts. That is no way to run one of London’s best hospitals.”

She said Homerton hospital had already lost a breast cancer specialist, a consultant and a rheumatologist.

Paul Vousden, head of communications at Hackney and City Primary Care Trust, admitted there has been a reduction in beds at Homerton but said: “Medical advances such as improvement in pain relief means that patients now have to spend less time in hospital, thus allowing them to recover more quickly in the comfort of their own homes.”

After marching to Homerton hospital, the protesters returned to Hackney town hall and were joined by workers from the Royal London hospital in Whitechapel.
Demonstrators handed out leaflets claiming that a £30m cut in community services was to blame for the job losses in Hackney.

Nurses at the march said they were struggling to cope. They said they now have to cover two or three people’s jobs and were living in fear of further redundancies.
Mr Vousden said the protesters’ leaflets were “misleading” and that job losses were part of a modernisation programme designed to ensure value for money for patients in Hackney.

But Cennet Condon, an advocate at Homerton, said: “We can’t provide a good service without staff and it is the patients who are suffering.”