Panic at NHS direct action call

In light of the recent negative publicity in both the newspapers and radio, in relation to an escalation in activity to saving our hospitals, I believe that we need to analyze how the campaign has progressed since conception, how objectives have been achieved in other campaigns and how direct action could benefit this.

Following the initial announcement that certain hospitals may be closed or downgraded, a sustained public relations campaign was formed being led by 'Keep Worthing and Southlands Hospitals (KWASH). This has been successful in uniting people, organising public meetings, collecting names on petitions and leading protest marches through the town. But what has actually been achieved?

Worthing Hospital is still threatened with being downgraded and losing its A&E department, intensive care, orthopaedics, maternity and other essential services.

Nothing has changed since the start of the campaign.

There are similar organisations working to save both St Richards in Chichester and Princess Royal in Haywards Heath. Both of these groups are using similar tactics and have only achieved similar results. At the moment there is only one guaranteed outcome and that is that services including A&E will be lost somewhere in West Sussex which is totally unacceptable. These campaigns have only served to divide and weaken people's effectiveness. We should be working together and saying that any closure anywhere is unacceptable.

This is where direct action comes in.

Direct action in one form or another has been used through generations, achieving results where other campaign tactics have failed. This could be by holding illegal and spontaneous protest marches, office occupations, blockades, criminal damage and other often frowned upon methods. But when you look deeper they make sense.

If those techniques currently being used were effective do you think they would be allowed? As has been learned, those that are effective have been made illegal so we are left with a moral dilemma, working within the law and being ineffective or breaking the law and achieving results.

People are scared of taking the next step. Quite understandable as the unknown can often be frightening, but when you realise the extent of the repercussions, things aren't quite as bad. There is only the law stopping you and the law is only relevant if you let it. What is a criminal record if you are retired or not working and don't need to inform anyone of it? It is worthless.

We are lucky in the hospital campaigns in the range of support that we have. Many of the supporters are of the older generation whose arrest will have few implications upon them except for the inconvenience of possible court appearances. We can use this to our advantage and already people have been speaking of taking such risks.

We have parents backing us. If someone was violently attacking or killing their children they wouldn't just stand there and ask them nicely to stop, write the attacker a letter or hold a sign or banner. They would physically intervene.
What is the difference here? The closure of A&E and intensive care could lead to the death of their child.
If you aren't prepared to fight for your loved one what are you prepared to fight for?
People are beginning to realise this.

We need to match the Primary Care Trusts (PCT) determination to close departments with our determination to keep the services open. They will use every tool in their toolbox to achieve their aim, we must use ours.

Leaders of other campaigns may say that to begin to act outside of the law or to begin a hard hitting campaign might weaken their current efforts. To this I would remind them of those that died in the concentration camps in the war. If someone dared to stand up to their oppressors they were dragged back by those being held captive for fear of reprisals. Look what happened to them all in the end. Infact it was those that took part in uprisings that had higher chances of survival than those that conformed.

Both the current and alternative methods can work effectively in conjunction with each other. There is no reason why one should weaken the other.

Hope is one of the greatest things that can be given to people to keep them quiet. If you give them hope that things will change then they will stay inside the law getting on with their lives thinking that others will achieve the results for them. This can be seen by the current low turn outs at the meetings. 500 people out of the towns 100,000 residents is not enough. We need more.
They are giving us hope, unrealistic hope. We must realise that services will be cut and that this is unacceptable. It could be your loved one that dies or someone else's. Whoever dies as a result of cutbacks and money saving is irrelevant. Life is precious and a value can't be put on such things.

The violent and illegal activities of both the suffragette and the civil rights movement were widely criticised at the time. Now those that took part are celebrated and we are thankful for their sacrifices and the methods that they chose.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that this is a dress rehersal and we will get another chance. Once these services are lost they will be gone forever and further savings will be sought in other areas.

Taking into consideration the above, we must now ask how much we love ourselves, our friends, family and neighbours. Those that follow us wont judge us by how many signatures on a petition we collected nor how many marches we held, they will judge us only by whether we were successful or not. Let's give them reason to celebrate our actions.