PHIL MAXWELL

Junior Doctors Liverpool Rally

May 23, 2016

Last Saturday junior doctors, their supporters, trade unionists and members of the Merseyside Pensioners Association gathered at St Georges Hall Liverpool for a rally supporting the historic struggle of the junior doctors. The assembled crowd listened to an assortment of speakers who spoke of the importance of the battle to protect conditions of service and the NHS.

Liverpool NHS Rally 2016

The strikes of the junior doctors have received massive support from the public who want to see a publicly funded accountable NHS for all. Jeremy Hunt wrote that he would like to see the NHS privatised and business is lining up to get its hands on NHS budgets.

Liverpool NHS Rally 2016

The public understands that high standards of patient care can only be delivered by doctors and nurses who have reasonable working hours and conditions. The new contract that Jeremy hunt has tried to impose on the junior doctors is a slave wage contract.

Liverpool NHS Rally 2016

Trade Union speakers stressed the importance of solidarity and industrial action to defeat government privatisation plans.

Liverpool NHS Rally 2016

A wedding party walked past the speakers and received a big cheer from the crowd!

Liverpool Rally 2016

Liverpool NHS Rally 2016

Liverpool Rally 2016

Harry Leslie Smith

The final speaker was 92 year old Harry Leslie Smith who recalled the days of his youth before the NHS and welfare state was established. He told us about his 10 year old sister who died of TB in the workhouse and remembered the harrowing cries of people in their final days of cancer; they could not afford morphine to ease their pain. Health care was only for the wealthy.