11.05.1995

Lobby Dundee health trust

THE FIGHT against hospital cuts and closures in Dundee is building up towards the meeting of the health trust on May 22. Petitions are flooding in, particularly as the word on the street is that not only will DRI close, but so will Kings Cross Hospital.

The Communist Party will present its petition at the meeting and demand better healthcare facilities for all. Mary Ward, CP branch secretary in Dundee, said,

“The fight for decent healthcare goes on. We will expose the health trust bureaucracy as only interested in profits, not patients. We call on the unions to take up this massive public campaign and to fight for their members and for improved services. We need more hospitals, not less”.

Willy Wilson, the trust secretary, says the Communist Party’s presence at the May 22 meeting will be “welcome”, but implies that once the facts regarding the closure of DRI - for “sound clinical reasons” - are made clear, then the public’s fear will be allayed.

Our fears will be allayed when hospitals are run by workers, not bureaucrats. The trust can play with figures as much as it likes. The Dundee public will not be duped and will fight the trust all the way. Other parties and organisations must join the fight.

Nancy Morelli