19.10.1995

Blair’s men back trust butchers

Public sector workers have only their own muscle to rely on

AT THE last public meeting of Dundee Teaching Hospital’s Trust, probing by members of the CPGB and others from the Campaign Against Hospital Cuts and Closures forced trust member Dr McLean into the open. He revealed that even before the proposed closure of Dundee Royal Infirmary, Ninewells Hospital was already at least 22 acute beds short and that patients were at risk.

He confirmed that the proposed hospital closures in the city were financially driven and that the lack of facilities for coronary patients meant that many people would die before they reached the top of Aberdeen Hospital’s waiting list.

Since that meeting the local press has been inundated with examples of mis-diagnosis at Ninewells. Finally, despite repeated warnings from consultants about a lack of facilities in Dundee, a woman died on the way to Aberdeen for heart treatment.

The response of Dundee’s Labour MPs, John McAllion and Ernie Ross, has been typically disgraceful.

Ross and a number of Labour Party lackeys sat at the public meeting of the trust and said nothing.

As the revelations of understaffing and medical mayhem unfolded, the dynamic duo finally got around to having a meeting with the trust. Following this “full and detailed briefing”, McAllion and Ross emerged as apologists.

A Labour Party statement said, “The MPs acknowledged the efforts of the trust in dealing with rising levels of acute emergency admissions and other demands for clinical treatment, all of which require to be provided within finite budgets.” Our health service will not be safe in the hands of these men or any other Blair clones.

The trust members should accept responsibility for this mess and resign. Only with democratic control of healthcare will need and not profit be the driving force.