Author: Mary

Encouraging and collating discussion about workers' struggles and struggles for socialism locally, nationally and internationally

“I incite this meeting to rebellion!”

This blog post comes from a speech at a meeting held at the Quaker Meeting House Liverpool on Monday 11th March, 2024, for International Women’s Day. Other speeches were about child poverty, NHS privatisation, the situation in the big hospitals in Liverpool, and the situation for Hospitals in Gaza. We will publish those speeches too.

Mrs Pankhurst ended a famous meeting with the words “I incite this meeting to Rebellion!”. We follow in the footsteps of campaigning women over the years as we fight for maternity care, for the NHS, for women’s rights and against poverty.

We are campaigning for safe, respectful healthcare and maternity care for all women and babies. Giving birth can be a truly wonderful experience.

The wonderful artist amandagreavette shows us how wonderful birth can be.

“We meet here in Liverpool to mark International Working Women’s Day 2024. We meet to salute the women who have fought and won much in the past, to send sisterly greetings to all women around the world especially to those in struggle, those in war, and those damaged by the climate crises.

I want to talk about women’s health and maternity, locally, nationally and internationally. No one is safe until we all are safe. Change is possible. In living memory, we have seen huge improvements nationally and globally. In more recent memory we have seen significant damage done to these services again both nationally and globally, but the damage is most severe where government policies of Austerity or “Restructuring” have been imposed. Restructuring is what  Austerity is called in the Global South when countries are forced by the IMF to cut services because economic problems drive them to turn to it for aid.

“Between 2014-18 resources spent on public services dropped by more than 18 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and by 15 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa. Looking ahead, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that this trend will continue in all regions.”

It is always the women who carry the weight of such cuts and this is reflected in maternal deaths and infant mortality. Sadly, for the UK, we have experienced some of the worst damage amongst the richest countries. But as Governments imposed that damage, governments could repair and restore that damage. Meanwhile, it is our babies, our women who pay the price.

I will look in a minute at the most damning figures, those showing the deaths of mothers and of babies. We mark these deaths with respect and will both mourn and organise to improve this situation.

Our World in Data says “For most of human history, around 1 in 2 newborns died before reaching the age of fifteen. By 1950, that figure had declined to around one-quarter globally. By 2020, it had fallen to 4%. But while humanity has made much progress, there is still a lot of work to do.”

Look at the figures for infant mortality at birth. Twenty-seven other countries have better figures than ours, yet ours is one of the richest countries globally.

“The UK is fifth from the bottom among 27 European countries for infant mortality. The rate stalled in the UK between 2013 and 2018 at 3.9 per one thousand live births. In England and Wales, the rate is more than twice as high in the most deprived areas (5 per one thousand) compared with the least deprived areas (2.7 per one thousand).” (4 Mar 2020)

The latest figures from MBRRACE-UK (who report on maternal and baby deaths in the UK over time) show that the number of women dying in the UK during or soon after pregnancy has increased to levels not seen since 2003-05.

In 2020-22 there were 13.41 deaths in every 100 000 maternities, significantly higher than the maternal death rate of 8.79 deaths per 100 000 in 2017-19 and similar to 2003-05 (13.95 per 100 000).

We stop for a minute to mourn the death of two African women at Liverpool Women’s Hospital.

We do not accept the term “cultural bias.” It is racism and it must end. We recognise the increased risk for Black and Asian women in the maternity services as they are working today. We mourn these sisters and we will fight on to repair these terrible damages. We will be difficult to the government and to the NHS bosses in their names.

Internationally

Globally, every day in 2020, approximately eight hundred women died from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth – meaning that a woman dies around every two minutes.

South Sudan had 1223 deaths per 100,000 women giving birth.

Belarus has 1.1 deaths per 100,000 women giving birth.

The UK has 13.41 deaths in every 100,000 women giving birth.

“In 2020-22 there were 13.41 deaths in every 100,000 maternities, significantly higher than the maternal death rate of 8.79 deaths per 100,000 in 2017-19 and similar to 2003-05 (13.95 per 100,000).”

Statistics released by MBRRACE-UK show that the maternal death rate in the UK has increased significantly over the past few years. Between January 2020 and December 2022, the rate was 13.41 per 100,000 maternities, up 53% from 8.79 per 100,000 in the previous three-year period from 2017-2019. This rate is the highest it has been in almost 20 years.

This is worse than Albania and Turkmenistan, yet this country has one of the largest economies in the world, and we used to have the best healthcare system in the world. The UK is fifth from the bottom among 27 European  Countries for infant mortality

The situation is so serious that parents of babies who died or who were injured in maternity care are demanding a public enquiry. There have been many detailed and authoritative reports, often commissioned by the Government or by Parliament, on maternity services, but the government response has been appalling.

Maternity safety matters; building national links.

We are working with other campaigns including Keep our NHS Public with whom we have produced this fact sheet. We would be delighted to hear from other campaigns with whom we have not yet made contact.

We say that this government does not care about maternity deaths, does not care about the poor experience of giving birth, that poor funding and poor staffing numbers inflict on women. The government does not care about, indeed prides itself, on women’s poverty. Let me emphasise that. This is not governmental ignorance. The government are not ignorant of the damage they have done and are doing. It is a conscious choice. The Government have all the reports, they commissioned some of the reports, they have the evidence and they choose not to act to ameliorate the situation. It prefers to serve the very rich. It would rather pay damages for babies damaged at birth than sort the situation out. The cost of compensating mothers and their families for harm caused by NHS maternity services is more than double what the health service spends on such care each year, analysis shows.

This situation is manageable, and it could be changed. Money invested in patient care and staffing leads to a richer economy, not a poorer economy.

Change is possible and change is necessary.

While we mourn our dead, it is also important to consider the lesser injuries, and the other bad experiences women and babies are enduring because of the state of the service and because of poverty inflicted by Austerity. These damages are real and important whether we are talking of physical or mental injury. This situation could be repaired. Neither deaths nor lesser injuries are inevitable.

Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital Camapign is far from alone in calling out the damage being done. There are a host of charities and the Royal College of Midwives making the same point.

The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) is calling out the Government’s record on maternity funding which leaves some NHS trusts and boards basing midwifery staffing levels on what they can afford, not on women and baby’s needs.

Birte Harlev-Lam, Executive Director, Midwife at the RCM said: “Women and their safety are still not being put at the centre of care. If this were the case, we would see significant amounts of additional funding and real efforts to support, retain and recruit staff, and we are not. There is a black hole in the centre of our maternity services where more money and staff should be. I have no doubt this is undermining maternity staff efforts to deliver the safest and best possible care for women and their babies.

Some avoidable maternal deaths and maternal injuries are due to NHS understaffing, under equipment and understaffing. There is another factor in these deaths. The extreme inequality in the UK, and the cruel impact of austerity on women and on women’s health, on children and on children’s health arising from government policies and priorities, also affect maternal and infant mortality. Poverty causes extreme stress, poor nutrition, poor housing and poor health. Poor mental health after birth leads to deaths, especially amongst the poor, and Black women, yet maternal mental health services are badly damaged, and health visitor numbers have not recovered from the pandemic.

The impact on staff wellbeing, on workload and staff retention is also important. Working under constant pressure is extremely damaging to the health of staff. Neither giving birth, nor having treatment for Gynaecological issues, is routine or ordinary. It is staff vigilance that leads to safety. How someone can be vigilant at the end of a very busy 13-hour shift is beyond me. Many people working in the NHS do not feel free to speak out, and those running the show, plod on making the cuts or CIPS without informing the public of the damage being done, nor describing the damage done in earlier years of austerity.

“This is all having an impact on the safety and quality of care for women and also means many women with more complex needs such as mental health problems are not getting the care they need and deserve. This is also leaving staff exhausted, overwhelmed, fragile and feeling massively undervalued” warns the Royal College of Midwives.

Maternity is underfunded and hospitals are not even spending what the government allocate to maternity (according to the RCN) because they can’t balance their books without using that money for other things.

There is an ongoing shortage of midwives. The BBC reports a shortage of about 2,500 midwives on the ratios that the Government describes as safe for maternity care. We would say that these Government figures for provision of midwives are themselves too low for what is required. So, 2,500 is the minimum extra required.

Our struggle is part of the campaign to restore the NHS, to renationalise it, to turn it once again into a publicly delivered, comprehensive, national service, to make it safer for women and babies. Our campaign is part of the campaign for safety in maternity, part of the campaign for better pay and conditions for staff. It is also part of the campaign for women’s rights, and intrinsic to the rights of women are the rights of the child.

Inequality and poverty affect women’s health and the health of their children.

Campaigning in the street

There are fourteen million children (aged up to 18) in the UK. Reports this week drew out the terrible extent of childhood poverty in the UK. Meghan Meek-O’Connor, senior child poverty policy adviser at Save the Children UK, said: “Today 4.3 million children are being failed. It is an outrage that 100,000 more children are in poverty – they are being forgotten.

Britain in the 1970s was one of the most equal of rich countries. Today, it is the second most unequal, after the US (27 Nov 2023).

Stewart Lansley, the author of The Richer, the Poorer and The Cost of Inequality, said it was “an acute paradox of contemporary capitalism that as societies get more prosperous, rising numbers are unable to afford the most basic of material and social needs.” He also said: “In Britain, child poverty has doubled in 40 years. Yet few modern tycoons go without private jets, luxury yachts, even private islands.”

In a meeting in Liverpool recently  it was reported that;

“Inequality has no more powerful expression than in children’s health, and children in our region get a particularly bad deal,” before pointing out that Liverpool’s infant mortality rate remains above the national average and that, every year, around twenty-six infants in the city do not reach their first birthday.

They reveal how poor health in mothers of the next generation can lead to ingrained health inequalities, adding: “Babies born small or early because of poor maternal health have the worst possible start to life and a health trajectory which culminates in a shorter life expectancy and more years lived in ill health.”

For those babies who survive, there is an uncertain future ahead with current trends predicting that by 2040, Liverpudlians will live more than a quarter of their lives in ill health.”

Keeping kids in uniform and shoes is hard enough.

Our campaign will fight on about this as well as fighting for the restoration of the NHS.

Poverty amongst women.

“Women living on low incomes in England are at increased risk of experiencing poor health during pregnancy. Our recent review of the evidence found that women and babies living with socioeconomic disadvantages had a 40% increased risk of worse pregnancy outcomes including stillbirth, low birth weight and babies being born early. Women may also experience mental health issues following pregnancy, birth or in the first year after birth. Women with lower access to financial, educational, social and health resources engage less in care during pregnancy – called antenatal or maternity care.”

Mersey Pensioners fighting for fully qualified staff for all.

Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital Campaign started in 2015 to try to stop the closure of Liverpool Women’s Hospital. The assault on the NHS and on working class living standards was well under way by 2015 and closing one more hospital was small beer to the bureaucrats of the NHS and our city council at the time. We had already seen the scandal of Prince’s Park Medical Centre (See this article or this book for the history) and the fight to stop PFI in this city, so we were able to mobilise for Liverpool Women’s Hospital and to build our petition and awareness in the city. 

The banner of women who fought for healthcare more than a century ago. Their banner is in the Museum of Liverpool Life. Solidarity to the staff who are now on strike.

 Liverpool Women’s Hospital is still here, still short of money and staff, and still threatened with merger, dispersal, and de facto closure. We will publish a more detailed report on the situation for Liverpool Women’s Hospital shortly.

We saw enormous improvements in infant mortality and maternal mortality following the introduction of the NHS. We can see such improvements once again if the NHS is reinstated.

So, we will persist, as women do.

We send special greetings to the Home Based Women Workers’ Trade Union of Pakistan with whom we have exchanged greetings each year of our campaign. They have built a powerful trade union amongst women who work at home in various trades. They inspire us to continue in our campaign. We send greetings to the women working to unionise the uranium mines in  Namibia. We send greetings to women around the world fighting for better maternity care.

As always we look to how women in the past have won gains  in rights and services, we remember the women who fought for the vote, the women who fought for baby clinics and maternity care and contraception here in Liverpool, the women of the sixties and seventies who fought for women’s rights in childbirth, for those who fought for  women to be able to choose contraception  without their husbands permission, for abortion rights, for equal pay, with a special shout out to the machinists in Fords In Speke,  for women’s economic independence, for the end to the marriage bar in teaching and other jobs for the fight for the Women’s Hospital in London and many more

We campaign, we organise, we agitate, we consult,  we build links, we challenge and we demand. We can win but only as we grow ever bigger.

Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital for all our mothers, sisters, daughters, friends, and lovers and for every baby.

Please support our campaign Please sign our petition ( unless you have already signed)

lobbying the Integrated Care Board

Public meeting for International Women’s Day 2024

As part of marking International Women’s Day, the Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital Campaign is organizing a public meeting on March 11th in the  Quaker Meeting House in School Lane Liverpool (behind Primark) at 7 pm. We will provide a Zoom link for people who want to go and can’t make it in person.

We can do it! International Women’s Day 2024, Inspire + Struggle – fighting for maternity and the NHS, the situation in Gaza for pregnant women & health workers, ceasefire now. This will be a hybrid meeting so you can join by Zoom

email savelwh@outlook.com or contact by this blog

We need to campaign – and the history of International Women’s Day reminds us that campaigns can win. 

We can do it!
Thanks to Anjali027 for this picture.

Campaigning works. The campaign to Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital has marked International Women’s Day for eight years now. We have fought hard to save the hospital in a time of great damage to the NHS and damage to the maternity services nationally.

Donna Ockendon with just one of her damning reports on maternity care.

These damages have been described in prestigious reports yet still the government closes its ears. The hospital has been damaged by cuts, poor staffing, and bad policy decisions, but the hospital is still there, still under threat, still underfunded and understaffed, but still there. Campaigning works. We have miles to go before we have the hospital we need but at least what we have has not (yet) been taken away

Grief in Gaza

On this International Women’s Day, our hearts break and our voices are raised for the plight of pregnant women and their babies in Gaza, giving birth now without any medical attention being available as every hospital is destroyed. Food and water are in very short supply. This damage to mothers and babies is sickening. We share the feeling of dread as the horrid Israeli threat of an attack at the start of the holy month of Ramadan approaches. We demand a ceasefire and a just peace where the children of Palestine and Israel can grow up in peace justice and harmony.

Retired midwife Rebecca speaking in Liverpool about the plight of women giving birth in Gaza

Our thoughts go to the women of Ukraine, and those from Ukraine now living in this city. Our thoughts to the women of Yemen, Sudan, and Haiti all caught in the maelstrom of crises and war. We send solidarity to the women of Russia organizing against the odds for peace, and to all the women of the peace movement across the world

We celebrate the victory of women in France who now see the right to abortion written into the constitution.

We send greetings to all the US women who are fighting a terrible reaction in politics generally, but especially in their rights to control their fertility. This is in a country that does not provide decent maternity leave, and with ten times the maternal death rate of Australia, Austria, Israel, Japan, and Spain. Eighty-four percent of reviewed maternal deaths were described as preventable.

We send greetings to the women of the Kurdish community here in Liverpool and to the Kurds fighting for respect and peace in their homelands.

Picture from the camp in Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh

Our hearts go out to the women and girls of the Rohingya community, driven from their homeland and living now in a million-strong refugee camp in Bangladesh.

We live in a time of genocide and war. We look to the generations of women who have worked for peace, including those from Greenham Common

Liverpool, once the second city of the British “Empire”( and all the racism that involved), and because of the trade links, is home to a black community dating back hundreds of years and one of the oldest Chinese communities outside of China.

From a mural outisde Liverpool Women’s Hospital entrance.

Sadly though we now mourn two black women who have died at Liverpool Women’s Hospital from complications in pregnancy or birth. In their honour, we rejoin our efforts to campaign for better safer maternity services, better staffing ratios, and well-paid staff with more time to think and plan, with more support top-down, to tackle blame culture & reduce tensions. This must be accompanied by more investment in staff. Managed decline has led to half the staff with double the workload. Paperwork is now all online so more admin and less time with patient contact. The culture needs to change. This will take a lot of work as there is still also a massive issue with hierarchy and bullying. More investment, and more support, will ultimately improve the work environment which will subsequently give women better experiences as tensions lessen.

Liverpool Women’s Hospital has a history of anti-racism but that, like many other great provisions, can be severely damaged by austerity cuts. This tradition of anti racism needs to be enthusiastically revived but overworked burnt out staff are hardly in a good position for this. A good indicator of a safe environment for Black and Ethnic Minority patients is ethnic minority staff reporting that they do not experience racism and discrimination. Sadly, a report to the board described the opposite. However, in a recent webinar about migrant women giving birth, Liverpool was highly praised for the support midwives gave to one of the speakers. The specialist teams supporting vulnerable women do great work.

Image from MBBRACE

We join with others in demanding action to make it safer for all mothers to give birth and demand action to reduce the particular risk to Black Asian and poor women of all races. In the UK, the rates of baby death and stillbirth among Black and Asian mothers are double those for white women. We have written about the higher number of deaths among black babies.

In one of these maternal deaths, investigators from the national body the Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations (MSNI) were called in after the woman died. They reported that “The investigation into her death found hospital staff had not taken some observations because the patient was “being difficult”,( our emphasis) according to comments in her medical notes. “…ethnicity and health inequalities impacted on the care provided to the patient, suggesting that an unconscious cultural bias delayed the timing of diagnosis and response to her clinical deterioration”. “This was evident in discussions with staff involved in the direct care of the patient“.

“She was being difficult”. These words have sparked fear and anger in many women. This sister would have been in a strange environment, far from home, with people speaking a language she did not speak. She would have been full of hormones from her miscarriage. She had had babies before and would have known what she was feeling was not right. And she was ill and in pain. Because she was being “difficult” she was not monitored as she should have been and this cost her the chance of life. Now two babies are motherless and a family bereft.

The wider impact of this death.

In the aftermath of this death, and the publicity it gained, Melissa Sigodo (@melissasigodo), a Zimbabwean and British community reporter from the Daily Mirror, held a Twitter (X)Space meeting with 90 mainly black women, from across the country, discussing the case. The experiences of these women were heartbreaking. This case had reawakened their fears.

There is no room for racism in maternity care.  

The safety of women giving birth is the responsibility of the service, not the individual. Every woman matters. Liverpool Women’s has had a good reputation for anti-racism. This reputation must be regained. Most midwives, health care assistants, and obstetricians would agree. Developing a safe place for every woman to be treated and to work takes time and effort. We echo the words and determination of the suffragettes, in saying “There must be deeds, not words” on this matter.

The hospital is changing its systems to support patients who are rapidly deteriorating and we welcome this.

Liverpool Women’s Hospital was built on Crown Street site as part of Project Rosemary, to help heal the injustices which had led to the uprising in Toxteth in 1981. Black building workers were employed in the construction of the hospital. The hospital now serves a great ethnic mix of people, for example in Princes Park Ward non-White English/ British resident population range is 59%, and in nearby Picton is 52%. Racism at this Hospital would be particularly offensive.

Mary Seacole Pioneering nurse and heroine of British soldiers inthe Crimean war

We can do it!

Let us remember the work of the great nurse Mary Seacole and all the women of the Windrush generation who so wonderfully staffed the early NHS. Liverpool Women’s Hospital must be a pioneer in antiracist women’s healthcare so no black woman fears using the service nor working in this or any other hospital.

We need to campaign – and the history of International Women’s Day reminds us that campaigns can win. 

On March the 8th and the few weeks that follow it we celebrate International Women’s Day. Women’s lives have been improved and much has been achieved since the founding of International Working Women’s Day. The gains made for women over the last 150 years are significant. The Fawcett Society published a list of these gains a few years ago. The women who won these gains did so despite the difficulties they faced.

Women today are potentially much more powerful than previous generations. We too can organize to improve our lives. So many of us are in employment that we have real power there, that could be organized much more effectively through trade unions. We can more easily campaign across the world. Remember the Women’s Strike in Iceland.

Fans supporting food banks provides practical help and campaigns against food poverty

Today we face real problems and worsening conditions so there is a greater need than ever for women to organise. We can take courage from the past for the very serious obstacles women face today. Those obstacles are serious and becoming ever more so.

Clinical support workers at Arrowe Park Hospital ion strike in the snow.

We salute all the NHS staff who have taken industrial action. We salute them also for working on in the terrible conditions imposed by this government. This shows the strength we have. War, austerity, climate, and economic crises make this era extremely dangerous but never have women been more equipped to demand and force change for the better.

“Whether they are older women suffering loneliness and isolation, single parents with additional caring responsibilities, or simply working mums trying to stretch household budgets to feed their families, the survey shows that women are significantly more likely to need food support from charities and community groups.”

There is much to do to improve women’s lives and many of the gains made are being eroded. The Cost-of-Living crisis hits women hardest. 75% of people accessing food support from Fare Shares a food charity are women.

https://www.stylist.co.uk/money/the-motherhood-penalty/502277

It is great that women are in work but not good that male and female pay is far from equal. It’s great that sex discrimination is illegal but it still happens, less openly perhaps. It’s great that equal pay law exists but women still earn less than men and the gap widens over a working life.

The motherhood penalty kicks in.  Forty-four percent of women are earning less now than they were before they had children. The employment rate was higher for mothers than either women or men without dependent children and has been since 2017.

Women are described as “the shock absorbers of poverty”, managing family bills and compensating for the government’s neglect and austerity policies.

Image credit to CADTM

What is happening in the UK is mirrored in other countries. Oxfam International’s report shows that while the richest 1 percent captured 54 percent of new global wealth over the past decade, this has accelerated to 63 percent in the past two years. $42 trillion of new wealth was created between December 2019 and December 2021.

“While ordinary people are making daily sacrifices on essentials like food, the super-rich have outdone even their wildest dreams. Just two years in, this decade is shaping up to be the best yet for billionaires —a roaring ‘20s boom for the world’s richest,” said Gabriela Bucher, Executive Director of Oxfam International 2021”

Not one thing that women have gained has been won without organisation, agitation, campaigning and struggle. So, it is today. Let our inspiration be in how women  have  struggled for a better life in the past and  in the great campaigns today.

“Inspire Inclusion” is 2024s International women’s Day slogan. We want to inspire women’s inclusion in the drive to improve the lives of working-class women and children.

It wasn’t wealthy women who led the earlier struggles of the women working in mills, tobacco factories, or  as domestic servants. Our inspiration is with the women who fought for all women,  and founded International Women’s Day

Bread
and Roses

In the words  the women’s anthem  Bread and Roses ( credit to Unison) we say

“As we go marching ,marching we battle too for men for they are women’s children and we mother them again”

In the tradition of the suffragettes,Let’s Inspire or incite women to rebellion, or even incite women to organise for a better life for locally nationally and internationally.

Solidarity  with Clinical Support Workers at Arrowe Park and Clatterbridge  Hospitals on the Wirral.

Today Wednesday 7th February 2024 is the last day of this phase of an epic strike.

A fresh vote is required, in law, for the strike to continue, and that strike ballot is underway.

Why is it important way beyond Wirral or even beyond Cheshire and Merseyside?

NHS pay is far worse in real terms than before austerity policies began.This is true for every kind of NHS worker.

The strike at Arrowe  Park and Clatterbridge is about banding and back pay.Clinical Support Workers should be paid band 3 but this group had been paid band 2 for a long time.

These are the healthworkers who work very closely with patients tending to personal care, feeding,  minor medical issues and making patients feel cared for and helping  the patients laugh and so recover.

It looked at one point like an agreement was in sight and staff would be regraded and back pay allowed.

Then, the deal was seen to exclude many of the workers,so the strike continued.

Why does it matter to the public?

1.Regulated pay, conditions, qualifications, and inhouse professional development are all essential to a safe workforce.Casualised,low paid, high turnover work, as we see in other industries and sections of privatised social care is very bad for patients,costly to the taxpayer and bad for the workers.It also wrecks the health of the workforce.

2 The NHS is supposed to be an Anchor Institution, one that provides good  pay and conditions for its workforce and, in so doing, improves life in the area it serves. The theory is that as a significant section of the community has decent pay, and working conditiond, the community as well as the individual will be healthier.Other employers will (the theory goes) have to  match those conditions to be able to recruit.So downgrading staff pay and conditions affects not just NHS staff but the wider communities

3. This is largely a women’s  workforce. ( Big cheers to all the fellas  on the picket line, too). These workers provide care, an essential of human life in all its glories, all its ups and downs, at all ages and traditionally provided by women, so underpaid.Care matters.Care is important, life affirming workHowever, care is really unde valued and underpaid in this society, by this government and by bosses.It’s up to the community to champion care.So lets support these workers

4. The NHS is being stripped to the bone by this government  and their big business cronies. A cheaper workforce is a huge gift to them but real damage to patients, workers, and the communities.So lets help these workers win.

5. A trade union is when workers come together to improve their conditions and pay.This is an epic trade union struggle.These women and men at Arrowe Park and Clatterbridge have stood together in solidarity over a long time, in sunshine rain and snow determined to protect and improve their wages, their working conditions.They are quietly demanding  the respect due to them from their bosses and the wider employer.In  so doing that they  defend far more people than their own union branch.

Picketing in the rain!

6. In striking and picketing for so long, in such numbers, these are a warning to the  NHS and other employers.They have made history.

7. The picket had fun with music dancing and more.

8.Unison have supported their members well in this dispute. Other unions could learn from them

When the  current ballot closes, the strike can restart, or the bosses could pay up.Either way  celebrate and support these care workers.

Lobbying the Integrated Care Board
What is a union?
Come rain or shine
People came from far and wide to offer support
The strike timetable for this round
Not even snow stopped this lot
Perseverance in the snow

Giving Birth in Gaza 2024

This blog post was updated on September 2024 as the National Palestine demonstration came to Liverpool coinciding with the Labour Party Conference.

September 2024. 16,456 children, including 115 newborn babies and over 11,000 women have been slaughtered in Gaza. Twin babies just 3 days old were killed in an air strike, as their dad went out to get their birth certificate.This war on the mothers and babies of Gaza has now lasted nearly a year. More children have been killed there in recent months than in four years of conflict worldwide, according to the United Nations. 

Israeli Forces have killed 1,151 healthcare workers. A total of 986 have been named so far.

Doctors from Liverpool have travelled to Gaza, worked for weeks at a time in the hospitals there, and come back to tell us their experiences.

Again and again, we say Ceasefire Now! Let our mothers deliver in peace and safety, let all our babies live in peace.

At the Liverpool Palestine Rally on Sunday 28th January 2024,  Dr Rebecca Smyth a midwife and academic spoke about the situation in Gaza for pregnant women and babies.

“I’m a retired Midwife, I’ve never worked in Palestine, but I’ve been watching and I want to tell you how life in Gaza is for pregnant women & newborns.

So the death toll is now 25,000.

We know this is underestimated.

So what are the conditions like for the women and their newborns?

They are inhumane.

There are NO fully functioning hospitals providing maternity care left in Gaza.

Most hospitals have been completely destroyed/obliterated/demolished/flattened to the ground / gone.

The few hospitals that have survived are completely overcrowded. Many women labouring and birthing on the floor, floors that haven’t been able to be washed for weeks on end, because as well as staff shortages, shortages of life-saving medicines, pain relief, equipment, fuel, drinking water and food, there is also no clean water for washing. As a result, births are taking place in unhygienic conditions and therefore the risk of infection is escalating, in fact, it’s predicted more lives will be lost through infectious diseases than bombing and shooting alone.

So pregnant women only go to the hospital when they think things are really wrong. Women are having to walk miles and miles only to birth alone on the way. Substantial numbers of women are haemorrhaging after the birth of their baby. With severe haemorrhage in minutes you can lose a mother. Blood transfusions and IV fluids are needed quickly. But there aren’t any. Not now in Gaza. So if a woman does make it to hospital, the only treatment might be a hysterectomy to save her life. Remember most surgery is done under headlights. There is no electricity at all.

But this is the Israeli’s plan, isn’t it? Make sure Palestinian women can’t bear any children.

Remember the definition of genocide includes: “imposing measures intended to prevent births within a group”.

But these unborn children are the future of Palestine, the future of all of us here now. They are our children. When you cry ‘In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians’ think of these children. Think of these children who didn’t ever get the life that is theirs. Never to exist. There are no words. It’s beyond belief.

Picture Action Aid Ireland

I’m sure you will have seen the countless reports of women undergoing caesarean sections without anaesthetic. That pain is unimaginable, isn’t it?

In Gaza 2.3 million face starvation.

If you starve a pregnant mother, you starve her baby. There’s a 30% increase in premature birth, this is because women are experiencing constant stress associated with Israel’s murderous actions. Babies are born growth-restricted, it is what it sounds. These babies are born so underweight they aren’t strong enough for life. Rates for miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal deaths are escalating every day.

I want now to tell you a little about Al-Awda Hospital. It’s the only hospital with a maternity department in Northern Gaza, it’s just about functioning. I’ve chosen this hospital as Liverpool Friends of Palestine (LFoP) is to start a fundraiser. It’s not started yet, there will be a GoFundMe page. It’s to buy medical supplies, such as ambulances (they’ve all been destroyed), so once this nightmare is over, we can help rebuild Palestine. We’ll keep you all posted about fundraising events.

Let me say a little about Al-Awda Hospital, it’s just like every other hospital in Gaza by the way.

For more than 20 days in December the hospital was put under closed siege, no one was able to enter or leave the hospital, it was surrounded by snipers. All services were stopped as 170 people were trapped inside – staff, patients, and their relatives. They fought to survive on increasingly dwindling food and water supplies. Dr Adnan Radi, head of the Department, said that six healthcare workers died in the final days of the siege, while pregnant women in labour were murdered while attempting to access the hospital. The Manager of the Hospital, Dr Ahmed Muhanna – was arrested and taken away, he is still being held as a hostage, his whereabouts unknown. Remember it’s happening at every hospital.

On 21st November 2023, there was an Israeli airstrike on the hospital, tragically Dr Mahmoud Abu Nujaila was killed along with two other doctors and human rights defenders. Just a month before he wrote on a whiteboard, normally used for planning surgeries, the following:

“Whoever stays until the end will tell the story. We did what we could. Remember us.”

May Dr Mahmoud Abu Nujaila and the many other thousands, Rest in Peace.

You can see more about the conditions for pregnant women in Gaza in this United Nations video.

A recent news report can be seen here

For all the mothers and babies ceasefire now.!

What Is Happening in Health Care in Cheshire and Merseyside in January 2024?

Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital is part of a coalition of campaigns fighting to Restore and Repair the NHS, and to win full staffing (with good pay, conditions, and qualifications) to improve the health of our largely working-class communities in Cheshire and Merseyside. One of the tasks we do together is to monitor the activities of the ICB, the so-called Integrated Care Board which replaced the NHS in the 2022 Health and Care Act. We have to resist the vicious cuts being made and challenge the damage being done.

Arrowe Park Hospital Clinical Support Workers on strike for fair pay and equality with other hospitals

The Cheshire and Merseyside ICS  is meeting in New Brighton on 25th January, from 9.00am to midday. People can ask questions from 9 until 9.30

Location: Tower Room, Floral Pavilion Theatre & Conference Centre, Marine Promenade, New Brighton, Wallasey CH45 2JS.Free parking opposite the Fort Perch car park.

https://www.cheshireandmerseyside.nhs.uk/get-involved/upcoming-meetings-and-events/nhs-cheshire-and-merseyside-integrated-care-board-january-2024/

Even before we read the paperwork for the ICB meeting, ( It should be published this week) we know patients and staff face serious issues and we will not sit back and let our services be reorganized out of existence. We will though post a comment about the issues when the paperwork is published on their website.

These problems are all solvable if privatization is withdrawn and we revert to a public service healthcare model based on publicly funded and publicly delivered care as the NHS was founded. Fortunately, the original NHS model of healthcare happens to be the most cost-efficient model of care. The privatization and cuts that have plagued our NHS for two decades have robbed us of what was judged the best healthcare in the world in 2014 by the Commonwealth Fund, a US charity that surveys health systems each year.

We work to restore the NHS like the Women’s Cooperative Guild fought to found universal healthcare a century ago. Remember that they won!

Yes, it will require investment to Repair and Restore the NHS. However, that investment will repay itself in the health of the population and in enriching the economy.

“… spending on the NHS should be regarded as an investment, not a cost. Improving population health can drive higher levels of economic growth across the country.” https://www.nhsconfed.org/publications/analysis-link-between-investing-health-and-economic-growth

Even the World Bank a leading light in the world of global capitalism agrees. It said good population health, nutrition, and education create the foundation for sustainable economic growth. It is now much better understood that a well-educated, healthy, and well-nourished workforce pays bigger dividends to the economy than simply building new roads and bridges. 

Please tell us what the key issues in healthcare are for you. These are some issues we want to highlight ahead of the ICB meeting., but you may have issues we don’t yet know about.

Do come along if you are free on the 25th of January to this meeting with your questions and /or to support the campaign.

These are healthcare issues that we know are facing us in Cheshire and Merseyside healthcare.

  1. Deeper privatization and structural change to allow such privatization. It is now even easier for the ICB to give contracts to private companies without going through public procedures. GP practices can be bought and sold. See below. NHS campaigners are monitoring how much ICB spends is given to big corporations. For more information on just two companies see this. Privatization means not only does our healthcare have to pay profit on top of cost but the companies are, by law, aiming to make the the highest profit, not providing the highest care, and each company is likely to be taken over by another company particularly hedge funds or the huge US health corporations. Privatization of public services is a disaster.
  2. Reduction of services. The NHS /ICB has fewer beds and fewer doctors per head of population than comparable countries. The Kings Fund wrote in a comparison study of health care in advanced economies”The UK also has fewer hospital beds; 2.5 beds per 1,000 people, compared to an average of 3.2 beds per 1,000 in our basket. Again, fewer beds are not necessarily bad – this could reflect shorter hospital stays – but the high occupancy rates of beds in the UK (88 percent in 2022/23, above recommended levels, and third highest in our basket) implies there is a shortage.” Local hospitals have been way above 88 percent bed occupancy this year. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine said the huge loss of beds since 2010-11 was causing “real patient harm” and a “serious patient safety crisis”.“Since 2010-11 the NHS has lost 25,000 beds across the UK, as a result, bed occupancy has risen, ambulance response times have risen, A&E waiting times have increased, cancelled elective care operations have increased.“
  3.  Greater problems with underfunding. The extent of Cuts ( CIPs) is dreadful, especially in this time of high inflation. Hospitals are given a budget by the ICB and have to show where they are going to make”Cost Improvements”. Reducing the service, though, is part and parcel of the ICS model imported from the USA. Each hospital is expected to make CIPs/cuts of about 5%. These are utterly unrealistic without causing still more preventable deaths, and the rules are saying the cuts must be replicable next year too with more cuts again. The NHS is underfunded and the strikes have cost money. The government could have settled the disputes for much less than the disputes have cost, but still refused to settle the disputes or to fund the costs to the hospitals. This all means longer waiting lists longer queues in Accident and Emergency and longer waits for ambulances. The BMA said last year“ Between 2009/10 and 2021/22, the cumulative underspend – the difference between what funding would have been if historical growth rates had been maintained, and what was actually provided – reached £322 billion in real terms.“
  4. The introduction of physician associates and other less qualified roles to replace doctors’ roles. https://www.bma.org.uk/bma-media-centre/bma-calls-for-immediate-pause-on-recruitment-of-physician-associates Although some PAs have been in place for some time the government is bringing in more lower-skilled staff rather than train and pay doctors.  We have seen the growth of other roles in General Practice. but this has not solved the problems. Pharmacists have proven useful but even The safest system is for patients first to see a qualified physician and then to be referred to a nurse or other health professional.  When we go for treatment we need to know how qualified the member of staff is. There is a consultation from the British Medical Association that you can take part in here. Margaret Greenwood MP for Wirral West spoke in Parliament about this. Her contribution can be found here.
  5. Our people in our working-class communities already die too young as shown in this report from Liverpool City Council. This class divide in health care is replicated across Cheshire and Merseyside with huge differences in life expectancy and life expectancy in good health between the rich and poor. The differences in health between different areas across Cheshire and Merseyside are stark and heartbreaking but we want better services for people in Walton and Woolton, for Crewe and Macclesfield the poorer and better-off areas of Cheshire and Merseyside. This country can provide far better healthcare for all. Our Government chooses not to do so. The slightly better-off communities are not the cause of the extreme poverty that has returned to this country.
  6. NHS Staff pay and conditions. Our area has had the greatest involvement of healthcare workers in industrial action. They deserve our full solidarity and they still have not got a fair deal. Fair pay and good working conditions for staff at every level are requirements of an effective health service. nationally 112,000 vacancies are unfilled. For more details on staffing see this.
  7. A separate dispute at Arrowe Parke Hospital over back pay and grading is dragging on, with 100 or more pickets out in the cold winter. This strike is making history. The courage and determination are a model for others to follow.
  8. The proportion of the NHS budget spent on General Practice is due to fall to its lowest point in at least eight years. We need better GP services.
  9. Meanwhile, Centene the US health corporation is selling  60 GP practices to another company! HCRG is the entity that replaced Virgin Health when 75% of the shares were bought out in 2021 by Twenty20 Capital, which is a British-owned private equity group. So our GP practices are now at the mercy of the market! ( Thanks to research from Note by Carol Saunders (Tower Hamlets KONP & NELSON)
  10. The situation at Liverpool Women’s Hospital continues to cause concern. It is part of the national maternity scandal, although Liverpool Women’s is fortunate to have a full staff of midwives, albeit as measured by the government’s meager staffing levels. We need more midwives but are very pleased to see the new young midwives arrive at the hospital and we hope that they stay for many years. Midwives need respect, good pay, good working conditions, and access to ongoing professional education. The new Chief Executive of Liverpool Women’s Hospital said “.. the organization was well organized, and there were limited opportunities for further internally driven efficiencies to reduce the financial deficit position. Work would therefore need to continue to influence the national maternity tariff and the CNST premium – both significant cost pressures to the Trust.” He also said, according to the December Trust Board minutes, “The RQR meeting had also provided an opportunity for the Trust to outline significant safety issues that required immediate action. This included 24/7 obstetric cover, development of a Medical Emergency Team (MET), blood bank availability, anesthetic cover, and ongoing work on the antiracism agenda.” despite this, the hospital is expected to make significant CIPs( cuts)
  11. Money given for dentistry cannot be spent because of changes to the service contracts for dentists, yet thousands go without. The NHS  is on course for  £400m underspend on its dental contract!!
  12. Waiting lists. The waiting lists for hospital treatment rose to a record of 7.8 million in November 2023 and this winter has not made things better.
  13. Allowing Palantir access to our most personal data. We are told it is not yet happening here but that train is rolling. NHS is paying the company a huge sum of £480 million for this service which will give the company access to data worth billions and which will further enrich the health insurance conglomerates and big Pharma. They will administer a key system for the NHS, and the Post Office Horizon scandal tells us just how important it is that such systems work well for the users, not those who want to make a profit. For further details on this issue see https://www.foxglove.org.uk/2024/01/11/nhs-federated-data-platform-need-to-know/
  14. Stress and pain for patients and staff are caused by the deliberate policies of this government and all who support NHS restructuring for profit rather than care. We thank the staff who have been the best protectors of our care and point the blame squarely on this and earlier governments.
  15. Pharmaceuticals. Too many patients cannot get the medication they need. Chasing around different chemists has become familiar.” Multinational health corporations are raking in huge profits while demanding the UK’s National Health Service pay high prices for their products. The excessive power wielded by these firms needs curbing if UK health policy is to truly work in the public interest.” says author Nick Deardon. The NHS once had, and could have again, a powerful position in buying from big companies as the world’s biggest single purchaser. The scale of big pharma gives them huge power. There is a powerful campaign being run on this issue which you can contact here
  16. The use of and cost of agency staff is a waste of money. We know that staff sometimes need flexible working especially with the poor level of NHS pay and the huge cost of childcare. The shortage of staff has become another way for big businesses to rip off the health service. In 2017 the government sold off NHS Professionals. The Canary paper wrote at the time“The DoH owns NHS Professionals (NHSP), a private limited company created to supply a bank of over 90,000 medical staff across different NHS Trusts. The flexible arrangements apparently save the government £70m a year in costs while non-government-owned private staffing agencies can be around 30% more expensive.” HCRG, remember them from the private sale of GP practices earlier in the article ( point 8 )? Well, they are one of the agencies cashing in in NHS funds through agency staff.
  17. The Royal College of Nurses reported “Findings from a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to NHS trusts in England expose a total of £3.2bn spent on agency staff by hospitals between 2020 and 2022.…..According to RCN analysis, three-quarters of nursing vacancies in the NHS in England could be filled if the money had been redirected to hiring permanent staff. Cash spent on agencies could cover the salaries of 30,956 permanent full-time equivalent nurses paid at the top of a Band 5 salary (£34,581).
Last time we lobbied the ICB in New Brighton
The October 2023 Demonstration for the Liverpool Women’s Hospital and to Repair and Restore the NHS.
Additional staff in GP practices since 2019https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/more-staff-in-general-practice-but-is-the-emerging-mix-of-roles-what-s-needed

Aliya Yule speaks at the end of the demonstration to save Liverpool Women’s Hospital and to restore the NHS. October 7th 2023.

I’m Aliya from the Patients Not Passports campaign and it’s an honour to be here today, joining this fight to save Liverpool Women’s Hospital. 

The Government is waging war on us, on our public services, and on our migrant & refugee communities. They tell us that migrants are to blame for overstretched schools and hospitals. But that is a lie.

It is the government that underfunds our NHS, and tells health workers to work harder for less. This is a crisis they have created. 

They tell us it’s people seeking safety on our shores that are the problem.  But again – that is a lie: Our enemy doesn’t travel by migrant dinghy. They travel by private jet. 

And it’s a dangerous lie. Because it has created more than a decade of the racist… violent Hostile Environment immigration controls, Which has forced health workers to become border guards… deterred patients from seeking care…and caused delays in life-saving treatment…  while saddling sick people with debts they can never pay, and sending debt collectors after them. 

The hostile environment is racist and sexist at its core. It disproportionately hits black and brown migrant women and pregnant people — we see how border policies of charging migrants for maternity treatment – routinely up to £10,000 – means that some people are too afraid to get the care they need. 

Alyia is second from left

Today, it’s an honour to be here with you in Liverpool, where we are standing up and fighting back. Today not only are we marching to save Liverpool Women’s hospital, we’re also marching for people like Omisha… a four-year-old girl who was charged £76,000 pounds for her cancer treatment.

Photo from the Change petition

We are patients not passports! 

We’re marching in solidarity with her family as they fight for justice. We’re marching for an NHS that is free for all, forever – no matter your immigration status… no matter where you are from… and no matter your ability to pay… Free at the point of use… for anyone in need. This is the socialist principle upon which it was founded, and which we must fight for. 

We must stand shoulder to shoulder… bringing our struggles together… against all attempts to divide us.  When we show up in solidarity and connect us our struggles, we know that we will win.

Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital. 

Save the NHS. 

Please see also Comfort’s speech at the start of the demonstration

A crucial message at our October 2023 demonstration.

Comfort Etim from Refugee Women Connect speaks to the Demonstration from atop the FBU appliance at the start of the demonstration, about the importance of Saving Liverpool Women’s Hospital .

Comfort Etim on the left of the picture with Aliya, Nakki and Nina

Reasons to Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital

“When asked to speak today, I ask myself why and what change do I want to see. The answer is change the narrative and join in solidarity to Save the Women’s Hospital where I have been privileged to have two of my children and I don’t think merging it is the right thing to do.

Speaking to over 20 women about why the women’s hospitals is important to them they all echoed the same thing as it is a safe space for women and should remain open where it is.

As mentioned, I work for Refugee Women Connect which is a charity organization that provides support for women seeking asylum, refugees, and survivors of trafficking across Merseyside.

We have continued to work we the women’s hospital in improving information around asylum and how best staff can continue to understand how to care for women having babies in the asylum system and be more welcoming and we believe the space has been created there is the capacity for it here at the women’s hospitals and fear it will be completely lost if we move the women’s hospitals to the Royal.

We love all the staff here at the women’s hospitals as they have welcomed us, listened to us, and continued to work with us. Our women feel very comfortable coming to the Women’s to have their babies just like I felt coming here to have my babies and we don’t want that to change.

The Migrant Surcharge

Next year the NHS Surcharge goes up and this will impact a lot of women. Migrant have been paying a lot of money to assess care in the UK and so when the government say things like we will increase visa and NHS charge it sounds as though it is a new thing but it is not.

The gaps in the NHS can be changed to an extent if the government could allow asylum seekers to work (Joining the campaign Lift the Ban) there are doctors, nurses, midwives, teachers, and many skilled workers amongst them.

If given the right to work they too can contribute to the society and thrive in a place they now call home.

The purpose of establishing women’s hospitals in the UK is to provide specialized healthcare services tailored to the unique needs of women. By having separating the women’s hospitals, healthcare providers can offer comprehensive care, conduct research, and promote education and awareness about women’s health in a safe place.

In summary, we stand in solidarity with the NHS staff for good pay and an improved support system for them to continue the amazing work they are doing already.

They need more staff to join the work, give asylum seekers the right to work so that they can reduce the workload, and contribute to our economy. Take away two and half years visas so that young children and adults wanting to further their education in healthcare can gain admission into universities.

Say loud say it clear refugees are welcome here. Refugee Women Connect believes Solidarity knows no border.”

Additional Note from Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital Campaign.

The Migrant charge for NHS services is an annual charge imposed on migrants. Migrants paying this charge can then use the NHS services as others do but not every migrant can use this system and face very harsh charging

Every pregnant woman should have maternity care free of charge. We have campaigned against the different kinds of migrant charges for the NHS. It is a bad system for pregnant women and has cost lives of mothers and babies

The Royal College of Midwives calls for the end of such charges.

Maternity Action also campaigns against these charges

“Until the increased rates take effect in 2025, the UK Immigration Health Surcharge currently costs £624 per applicant per year of leave granted, or a £470 per year discounted rate applies for student visa holders, those on the Youth Mobility Scheme and children under the age of 18.” So more than £2,000 for a family of 4.

Please also see the work of Patients not Passports for more information.

The march on October 7th 2023.

Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital! December 2023 Campaign News.

We are not stopping until we win back the full NHS!

Wishing everyone a good Christmas and a great campaign in the new year

Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital.

Restore and Repair the whole NHS!

For all our mothers, sisters, daughters, friends and lovers and every precious baby.

  • The UK still lags behind other wealthy countries in infant mortality.
  • Maternity is still grievously underfunded.
  • Maternity is in crisis
  • The health service is told to make further CIPs.
  • Privatisation is burning through the NHS. Midwives and Nurses and Clinical Support workers are still underpaid and overworked.

There is no significant improvement in funding for the desperate NHS from the Government this autumn as they prepare for tax cuts for the very rich “ICSs told to prepare ‘nuclear’ service cuts as NHSE plays ‘hardball’.

The government cannot play ignorance. Their Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has been deep in the reorganisation of the NHS on US lines for years.

The government is provoking a huge crisis as we head into a winter of avoidable deaths and harm. It will make a pretty penny for the big corporations though.

NHS: what we’re up against

We were promised consultation on the future of Liverpool Women’s Hospital but where is it?

Liverpool Women’s  Hospital is given a Chief Executive who also heads the Royal/Aintree/ Broadgreen merger.

Conveniently this appointment gets around the promised public consultation and to add to the murky mix the Liverpool Women’s Hospital will shortly share a  Chair of the Board with  Liverpool University Hospitals Trust ( The Royal Aintree and Broadgreen)

This is widely expected to be followed by a merger pulling women’s health, genetics, fertility, and maternity into a huge conglomerate.

Chief Executive of the Liverpool Women’s  Hospital is the top Maternity job in the country. Maternity is in a national crisis of staffing and safety. Why won’t Mr Sumner tell us what he knows about Maternity? 

Repeatedly, we see reports of inadequate care in maternity across the country. Most recently

“Maternity services at Royal Derby Hospital and Queens Hospital, part of University Hospitals of Derby and Burton, were inspected by the CQC in August as part of the regulator’s national maternity services inspection programme, which has seen an increasing number of maternity services across the English NHS rated “inadequate.” 

Liverpool Women’s Hospital has also had a poor CQC report on maternity.

Liverpool Women’s Hospital claims to be the only fully staffed maternity provider in the country, though many of the midwives are newly qualified. We do hope those midwives stay!

It seems that the axe will not fall on maternity as hard as it will on other services.

Dr Suzanne Tyler, Executive Director of Trade Union at the RCM, said:

“While we acknowledge that this will be an incredibly difficult time for our colleagues elsewhere in the NHS, we are grateful that NHS England has listened to our plea to maintain the level of funding and investment in maternity services to protect safety. To have done otherwise would have been incredibly damaging to the ability of midwives, maternity support workers and other maternity staff to deliver safe care to women and families. We already know the impact that can have, and we are pleased to be working with Trusts and others to bring about positive change. This commitment to the continuation of funding should not be underestimated and we strongly urge Trusts to honour this commitment.

“Recent reviews by Dr Bill Kirkup and Donna Ockenden have called on the Government and on NHS bodies to address the chronic maternity workforce shortage and to invest in the safety of services. We hope that today’s announcement will go some way to make those recommendations a reality.”

Our campaign says “maintaining” current levels is not good enough and damaging the rest of the  NHS is simply wrong Women need heart care, diabetes care, mental health care as well as maternity care and they all intertwine. Stop this government’s health policies in their entirety.

 Women are being damaged.

Women, and especially mothers, are being damaged by poverty, the housing crisis cold homes and poor pay. Becoming a mother is very tough for many. A recent report shows young mothers are especially vulnerable.

Join your voices for our health care. Demand it back.

Restore and Repair the NHS. Stop the rot now!

Profit-centred policies are reshaping and downscaling our health services. These policies are destroying our services. providing fewer services, fewer beds and massive staff shortages. But it provides  more profit for health corporations like Optum and management consultants like Carnall Farrar

Privatisation policies are hidden behind sweet words. The privatisation lobby is also infecting Labour, so the fightback is down to us all. The NHS was not a gift from the great and the good but something fought for for years by working class women and by the Trade Nnions. We got the NHS that way and we can get it back the same way

Government policy costs lives., especially the lives of working-class people.

The US system has more preventable deaths than any other advanced country.

Fewer services are being provided in the NHS. Pressure is put on patients to use private healthcare. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/26/one-in-seven-adults-in-england-advised-by-nhs-to-go-private

What has happened to dentistry and mental health services can happen to every service.

Wages and conditions in the NHS have fallen in real terms. Staff are working way beyond their duties just to keep the service afloat.

We will never get our services back unless we all spread the word.

Don’t be the person who has today to your grandchildren as they struggle to pay for poor health care

“Well we did have a health service for everyone but they privatised it”

One to one conversations build our campaign
The Women’s Cooperative Guild organised a mass campaign for maternity care for all women

Key facts

•In the US health insurance costs about as much as the family mortgage and does not cover everything. Many go without.

• Private healthcare cannot be as good as a national comprehensive service.

• We pay through our taxes. Government money invested in healthcare pays back into the economy.

Demand a return to the original NHS, once the best in the world. It was Government funded, providing timely healthcare for all, including all the services, publicly delivered by qualified staff with decent pay and conditions. This is how the NHS was designed by Aneurin Bevan, seventy five years ago.

It is the cheapest, most cost-efficient and humane way to provide health care. If YOU spread the word, we stand a chance of getting our services back .

We know we have the support of the people of Cheshire and Merseyside. We work with health campaign groups and trade unions across Cheshire and Merseyside and beyond. We have more than 70,000 signatures on our petition, combining the paper signatures and the online petition. We have distributed tens of thousands of leaflets; three big demonstrations all show this support.

We have a feral government intent on transforming the NHS into a cash cow for big corporations.

We are calling for a winter of protest and campaigns to inform the public. Help us if you can!

Contact savelwh@outlook.com

or

takebacktheNHS@proton.me

Ceasefire for the sake of the children!

At our campaign meeting on November 6th, 2023 we discussed the CQC report on the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, the CQC report on all the maternity providers nationally, infant mortality at the Liverpool Women’s Hospital as reported in the MBRAACE report, the appointment of a joint chair of the board with Liverpool University Hospitals Trust, the cuts imposed by the ICB, the shortages of midwives, obstetricians, and concerns about women’s experience of giving birth. We also discussed our wonderful demonstration on the 7th of October 2023.

Although we discussed all these issues, our conversation kept coming back to the babies and children in Gaza and the hospitals there under the horrific bombing by Israeli forces. We could not ignore the killing of babies and children in Gaza the problems of women giving birth under a rain of bombs, and the terrible state of the health service in Gaza.

Our hearts go out to those who died, all who are injured or bereaved, and to the families of all the children killed injured, or kidnapped, definitely including those killed in Israel by Hamas.

“Women, children and newborns in Gaza are disproportionately bearing the burden of the escalation of hostilities in the occupied Palestinian territory, both as casualties and in reduced access to health services, warn the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA), and the World Health Organization (WHO).

As of 3 November, according to Ministry of Health data, 2326 women and 3760 children have been killed in the Gaza strip, representing 67% of all casualties, while thousands more have been injured. This means that 420 children are killed or injured every day, some of them only a few months old.”

Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital  Campaign focuses on the issues around women’s health, maternity, infant mortality, the NHS and NHS staff, restructuring legally and organisationally for privatization, and the diversion of funds to private profit. We focus also on staffing and working conditions, but the situation in Gaza cannot be ignored. Too many women and babies, doctors, and nurses have died.

Liverpool Women’s Hospital itself was attacked by a lone bomber so we know the experience of terror attacks. Mill Road Hospital, one of our predecessors, was bombed during the Blitz and the stories of that incident live on amongst us.

St Luke’s Church, just over a mile from Liverpool Women’s Hospital, stands at the top of Bold Street in memorial to that Blitz and to the demand that such attacks on civilians never happen again, but bombs are raining down on the people of Gaza as they did on Liverpool more than eighty years ago. Around four thousand people in Liverpool died during the blitz according to official figures, but it may have been more. In Gaza, it is ten thousand dead and the bombs are still falling. The United Nations has called it a children’s graveyard.

Just as the stories of the bombing of Mill Road Hospital are still retold today, in eighty years so will the tales of bombing Gaza. For the sake of the survivors in Gaza and Israel, the children must grow up in peace.

For now, the demand must be for a ceasefire.

Our hearts ache for the women giving birth under bombing, lacking proper medical care, and anesthetics. Our admiration goes out to the hospital staff who stay and care for their patients. One report says “Some women experience postpartum bleeding and we can’t manage it… we’ve performed hysterectomies on women who could have been saved. But to save blood, we’ve made the decision to remove the uterus to increase the chances of not losing the patient.” #Gaza.

There is a direct appeal for help from medics in the UK to give remote aid.

You can donate here https://www.map.org.uk/donate/donate

There was a truce during Christmas in World War 1 commemorated in a statue at St Lukes. A ceasefire is not impossible. It’s a choice to be made by people who were born of women. We join the call for a ceasefire now.

Added on Saturday 11th November morning.We hear that a hospital is now also under full scale land attack and that the power for the incubators has failed.

There are no words.