ON THURSDAY 26TH July up to 200 people attended a demonstration at the Council House in Bristol, called by Bristol And District Anti-Cuts Alliance, over proposals to close care homes. Bristol City Council intend to close eight of its remaining care homes and seven council-run day centres. This will mean more privatisation, worse service standards, less accountability, and less jobs. The private providers will of course pay lower wages and spend less on training. By getting these services on the cheap, the council will save money at the expense of the elderly, the vulnerable and everyone else. The council calls this ‘modernisation’: everyone else calls them ‘cuts’. And, of course, in the last year, the remaining council-run home ‘care’ service has already been privatised and grants to voluntary groups running services like lunch clubs and day centres have been slashed. The demo was attended by carers, residents, workers at the homes and supporters of B.A.D.A.C.A. and Bath Anti-Cuts Alliance. Members of the council were passionately addressed by members of the demo.
The first two care homes are planned to close before the end of this year, but B.A.D.A.C.A. is working with those affected, both residents and staff, to prevent this. The next full council meeting on Tuesday September 18th will be a key event. B.A.D.A.C.A. and others will be holding a mass lobby of this meeting to tell the council that Bristol doesn’t accept these closures. Please help spread the word:
Lobby of Bristol City Council Meeting: Tuesday 18th September
Venue: Council House, College Green, Bristol, BS1 5TR
Time: 5.00p.m.
Please come along and tell councillors what the people of Bristol think of their cut-throat plans. For more information, e-mail admin[at]bristolanticutsalliance.org.uk.
Meanwhile in Bath, staff at the Royal United Hospital have warned that they will consider strike action over proposals to damage their working lives. The hospital has joined 18 other health bodies in the southwest to controversially form the P.T.C. cartel, as part of the Con-Dem’s plot to slash funding to the tune of £20 billion – nearly a fifth of the N.H.S.’s entire annual budget. The R.U.H. has even gone so far as to throw £10,000 of public funding at a new directorial post, whose sole aim is destroying nurses’ pay and conditions. The next Bath Anti-Cuts Alliance organising meeting on the 4th September, at 8p.m., in the upstairs of the Ram pub in Widcombe, will be discussing how we can support these workers. This assault in hospital workers, and resistance to it, looks set to go country wide very soon. More to follow.
http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/710603
