Posted by Terrie Templeton on September 9, 2001 at 22:41:54:
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"The problem with capitalism is that it best rewards the worst part of us: the ruthless, competitive, conniving, opportunistic, acquisitive drives, giving little reward and often much punishment--or at least much handicap--to honesty, compassion, fair play, many forms of hard work, love of justice, and a concern for those in need."
- Michael Parenti
Source: Land of Idols (1994)
1) COMING EVENTS
2) CALLS TO ACTION
a) JSCOT calling for submissions (nuclear issues)
b) Signon letter pre-Doha
c) Take action---Ghana Water privatisation
3) FOCUS ON GATS
a) Alliance to Expose GATS meeting
b) Schools Need Private Sector Help
c) The Reality of a New NHS Flagship
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1) COMING EVENTS
BRISBANE STOP FOOD IRRADIATION ALLIANCE
NUCLEAR FREE NEIGHBORHOOD CAMPAIGN
MEETINGS: Every Tuesday 7pm Justice Products West End
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The Great GATS Debate
September 11th
Paddington Workers Centre Latrobe Tce, Paddington 6pm
Beth Mohle (Qld Nurses Union) Dr Liz Elliot and more.....
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if you want to keep updated about CHOGM, WTO, GATS, education, refugees, and
other issues you can subscribe to any of these groups (there are many
others) by sending an email to the address as noted .
Global-Justice-Alliance-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
This group is for anyone who wants to get involved in the Global Justice
Alliance (Northern Rivers) which meets every Wednesday at 6pm at the Lismore
Workers Club. The Global Justice Alliance is primarily a networking and
organising group who wish to facilitate the distribution of information and
increase peoples awareness in regard to the following areas.
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Conference presented by the Refugee Action Collective
"Refugee Policy & the need for Reform: Alternatives to Mandatory Detention."
Saturday 15 September
Trades & Labor Council Building
2nd fl, 16 Peel St, South Brisbane
Agenda:
10am Introduction Sandy McCutcheon, writer and broadcaster
10:30am: Globalisation and the international refugee crisis
Tom Widdup, Oxfam Community Aid Abroad
Carmille Barbagello, Stop CHOGM Alliance
12 noon Lunch
1pm: Refugee Policy & Hansonism
Senator Andrew Bartlett, Australian Democrats
Sam Watson, Socialist Alliance
Refugee Crises: the legacy of colonialism
Hassan Ghulam, President, Hazzara Ethnic Society
Dhano Obongo, Sudanese Community
Temporary Protection Visas: the human cost
Rashida Joseph, Community Support Worker, Romero Centre
Renae Mann, author of MAQ report on TPV holders
3pm: A new government, a new deal? Alternatives to mandatory
detention.
Leonie Short MP, Australian Labor Party
Grace Grace, General Secretary, Queensland Council of Unions
Damien Eckersley, Refugee Action Collective
4:45pm Resolution and discussion.
Councillor Kerry Rea
Entry by donation.
Phone the Refugee Action Collective on 0409 877528 for more details.
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John Rumbiak - Direct from West Papua
Supervisor of Els-Ham (Institute for Human Rights Study and Advocacy, Jayapura, West Papua)
Discusses the human rights crisis facing West Papua
Monday 10th September 7pm
@ St Mary's Church, 20 Merivale Street, South Brisbane Entry by donation
Organised by:
Australia West Papua Association
Amnesty International Australia QLD
ASIET.
Contact awpab@yahoo.com.au for further details
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2) CALLS TO ACTION
a) The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties is seeking submissions on the following proposed international treaties:
Agreement with Argentina concerning cooperation in peaceful use of nuclear energy
Agreement with US on nuclear transfers to Taiwan
Details at www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jsct
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b)
Below is the List of Australian signatories to the international sign-on letter "Our World is Not for Sale. WTO: Shrink or Sink" which we hope your organization can sign on to. Some of you will recognize the statement from the original "WTO: Shrink or Sink" document that came out after Seattle. The statement was recently updated in preparation for the upcoming 4th Ministerial of the World Trade Organization in Doha, Qatar (November 9-13) and was launched at a press conference in Geneva in July.
If the name of your organisation does not appear below, how about considering signing up ? Go to www.canadians.org
Our World is Not for Sale endorsers as of noon, August 2nd
Australia ACT Greens Armidillo Adventures Australia Tibet Council
Australian Rail Tram & Bus Industry Union (RTBU)
Catholics in Coalition for Justice and Peace
Community Information Association Edmond Rice Centre
Hashomer hatzair Youth Movement
Information for Action Mercy Foundation
Pariah--People Against racism In Aboriginal Homelands
Quest 2025 Search Foundation
Stop MAI Coalition
Student Representative Council WTO Watch Qld
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c) Take Action: Ghana Water Privatization Alert
Citizens from the whole of Ghana and representatives from around the world
met in May of this year in Accra, Ghana to found the Ghana National
Coalition Against the Privatization of Water. This meeting was led to the
launch of a world-wide campaign to stop the Government of Ghana, private
companies and international development agencies from privatizing the water
services of the country.
To learn more about the campaign, Visit www.waterobservatory.org
To send message to decision makers calling on them to stop the
privatization of Ghana's water service, go to
http://208.155.173.227/actionalert/actionDetail.cfm?Action_ID=121&SID=5
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2) GATS UPDATE
a) NEW ALLIANCE FORMED TO FIGHT GATS
A new Qld based alliance has been formed for the specific purpose of raising public awareness of the GATS. The Alliance to Expose GATS (AEG) already has the support of a number of groups representing the environment, unions, social justice, groups opposing globalism, and representatives of retired Australians. The AEG will seek to raise public awareness by holding information stalls and providing the media with information. It will lobby politicians in the lead up to the election, liase with similar groups in other states and provide information to industries likely to be affected by the GATS.
The AEG meets fortnightly at 12.30pm at 74 Astor Tce, Spring Hill (Miscellaneous Workers Union) and the next meeting will be on September 6th. Everybody is most welcome to attend.
For further information please contact Terrie Templeton gumbus@powerup.com.au
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[Some of you may have seen the report on the telly the other night about Australia's first privatised public hospital in Port Macquarie operated by Mayne Health. Community dissatisfaction with the service offered by this hospital was running at about 90%. We can expect more of the same if the GATS comes into force. Please read the following reports from Britain, and if you don't like what you read, please remember that I have here letters to both Kim Beazley and John Howard re GATS which I would be happy to forward to you on request. Or better still.....write your own letter. But please bear in mind that unless we put pressure on to our political leaders, the GATS will go ahead...it is being pushed by the power of the European and American service industries. ED]
b) Schools 'need private-sector help'
By Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor
The Independent, 03 September 2001
Estelle Morris, the Education Secretary, set the Government on a
collision course with teaching unions yesterday when she declared that
Britain's failing state schools "need" the help of private firms.
Ms Morris's defiant stance, which has the full backing of Tony Blair,
will be underlined on Wednesday when she publishes the education White
Paper outlining plans to allow the private sector a much greater role in
state education. The Prime Minister has refused to back down over the
proposals, despite claims from critics that they amount to the "creeping
privatisation" of schools.
Unlike the NHS, where public-sector unions have forced a retreat on the
issue of private involvement, Downing Street is prepared for a showdown
on education. A senior party source told The Independent that part of
the reason for the defiance of unions such as the NUT and NASUWT was
that they did not help fund the Labour Party. "The plain fact is that we
will listen to unions that are part of the Labour movement. But we're
not going to take lectures from those unions who aren't affiliated," he
said.
The White Paper was due to be released in July but its publication was
postponed amid a wider outcry from Labour MPs and unions about
public-private partnerships.
However, Andrew Adonis, the Downing Street Policy Unit chief who has
written the paper, has been allowed by Mr Blair to retain proposals to
use private firms to rescue Britain's worst-performing schools. To make
the plans more palatable, private involvement will be allowed only at
the request of parents, and successful state schools will also be
allowed to take over their failing neighbours.
Alan Milburn, the Health Secretary, reassured the big trade unions in a
private meeting last week that the role of the private sector in the NHS
would be tightly circumscribed.
But Ms Morris made clear yesterday that the Government would not be
deterred by union threats from implementing radical change in education.
"Some children are not getting a good enough education and that's not a
criticism of teachers. It's a tough job and they need more help and
support and expertise that the private sector can offer. I'm not going
to turn my back on it if it can really help to raise standards," she
told BBC1's Breakfast with Frost.
"The biggest threat to public service is actually not to use every tool
at your disposal to make it better. We have got to use everything that
we can and, if using the private sector helps to deliver a better
service and we solve some deep-rooted problems, then I think we should
do it."
But Ms Morris's remarks failed to dampen the criticism of union leaders,
including John Monks, the TUC general secretary, and Nigel de Gruchy,
the general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union
of Women Teachers.
Mr Monks warned the Government that any wholesale privatisation of
public services would lead to "an extremely strong reaction" from
workers. "We've seen what's happened on the railways. People don't like
what's happened with London Underground. They certainly won't like the
idea of the extension of the private sector in areas like education and
health," Mr Monks told GMTV's Sunday Programme.
Charles Clarke, the Labour Party chairman, denied that the Government
had plans for "wholesale privatisation" of key services, but did warn
that reform as well as resources was the only key to improvement.
* Government plans to increase private sector involvement in the running
of essential services risk alienating their own supporters and are out
of step with public opinion, a new survey reveals.
Two thirds of the electorate and half of Tory voters want to see
health and education provided mostly or entirely by the state, according
to a MORI poll in The Times.
Seventy per cent of Labour supporters believe that education should be
mostly or entirely provided by government money, with 69 per cent
supporting a public-funded health service and 59 per cent wanting to see
a renationalised railway network.
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c)
Filthy, gloomy and chaotic
The reality of a new NHS flagship
Observer special: Labour's second term
Anthony Browne, health editor
Sunday July 8, 2001
The Observer
The glass atrium arches high into the sky, letting daylight and optimism
flood in. The straight lines of the clean brick walls project modernity and efficiency.
The Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle, the first public hospital in
Britain built with private money, was lauded as the way of the future when it was triumphantly opened by Tony Blair in
June last year.
But beneath the gleaming façade lurks a catalogue of horrors that nurses, doctors and unions insist prove the
Government's much loved private finance initiative is not just bad in
theory: they have lived with it, and it does not work in practice.
To them, PFI has meant cardiac patients drenched with water flooding
from broken pipes, sewage spilling out into the operating theatre, nurses left ventilating patients by hand as
operations are plunged into darkness, broken equipment, second-rate maintenance as engineers are made
redundant, flea-infested laundry, dirty wards because of the cutback in cleaners, patients put in chairs because of
the reduced number of beds, and dying patients remaining undiagnosed as waiting times doubled.
It also means the health authority paying £11m a year in rent to a consortium, run by the construction group
AMEC, whose share price has soared because of the millions of pounds it expects to make from PFI. The health
authority is also renting a building it used to own because the new hospital is so small it has already run out of
space.
The £87m Cumberland Infirmary is the first of 68 PFI hospital projects, and Blair and his Health Secretary Alan
Milburn are now preparing to promote the role of private companies in the NHS in other ways.
Horrified unions are hitting back, dubbing it Railtrack on the wards. Peter Doyle, the Cumbria co-ordinator of the
health service union Unison, who has had to deal with staff complaints on the new hospital, said: 'It looks good
because it is brand new. But PFI means that you have to cut so many corners in order to save money that you
are left with a hospital that just doesn't work.'
You notice the cut corners as soon as you enter the gleaming new atrium, which has plenty of space put aside
for rent-paying shops. But there is no air conditioning, and last week as the temperature soared to 110 F, nurses
and patients were left sweating profusely. 'It was absolutely unbearable- it's really uncomfortable for us, and bad
for the patients,' said one exasperated nurse.
The high temperatures also expand the water pipes, that are joined by cheap plastic sleaves rather than
soldered. A fortnight ago, the pipe above the cardiology ward broke, causing water to cascade down on seriously
ill patients and around £300,000 worth of equipment. Nurses were left running around, pushing patients out of the
way of the water, and covering the equipment with incontinence sheets. 'It was complete chaos,' said one of the
nurses who tried to cope.
That was just the latest in a series of floods. The maternity ward has been flooded a couple of times. Builders
hadn't plumbed the baths in properly, and water flooded down in the wards below. At one point, raw sewage
spilled out from the sinks across the operating theatre. Cheap plastic joints also led to the ceiling collapsing
twice.
Six weeks ago the operating theatre was plunged into near darkness because the emergency generator stopped
working for 20 minutes. The lights went out and all the life-support equipment shut down without warning. Nurses
had to ventilate patients under general anaesthetic by hand. One patient was trapped with their head in a scanner
and had to remain there in darkness for 20 minutes. In the recovery room, where patients are taken after their
operation, nurses were left feeling their way around in the dark. 'It was really frightening - we just didn't know what
to do. We were lucky no lives were lost,' said one.
That was just the first time the generator failed. Soon after, the hospital was left in darkness without equipment
for nine minutes. When The Observer visited, all the lights went out three times. The construction firm AMEC
blames 'teething problems'.
The operating theatre has also been put out of action because the sterile services department, which is
responsible for cleaning surgical equipment, has simply stopped working.
'The washing machines are cheap and inadequate - there are not enough of them and they break down all the
time,' said one of the ancillary staff.
After the equipment is washed, it is dried in three autoclave ovens, which sterilise equipment using steam under
pressure. In the old hospital, there was an engineer who looked after the autoclaves, but he was made redundant
to cut costs.
All three autoclaves broke down, there was no one to repair them and operations had to be cancelled. 'It's the
cheapest of everything, and nothing works,' said one worker.
In another bid to reduce costs, the hospital was built small. There are 90 fewer beds than in the hospitals it has
replaced, and there is a chronic shortage of beds.
The bed manager has been told - but refused - to take sick patients out of bed and put them in an armchair for a
few hours, so their bed can temporarily be used for another patient undergoing surgery.
Because the hospital was built so small, there is no storage space to hold medical records and copies of X-rays.
All X-ray records are now stored in the old hospital building, which means nurses have to go on a 15-minute
round trip to get them. 'It takes so long, we virtually can't function,' said one nurse.
The enforced slowdown has meant that waiting times for radiologists to examine X-rays - which should be within
10 days - has risen from two months in the old hospital to seven months now.
One patient with a tumour recently had to wait two months just to get his X-ray to be examined, during which
time he was given no treatment and his tumour carried on growing. 'People will die because of this, and things
are getting steadily worse,' said a nurse.
Space saving means the wards are so small that the doors couldn't open without banging into beds, and the
doors had to be removed.
Resuscitation trolleys, to attend to people with heart attacks, were too big to get into the wards, and had to be
specially rebuilt at a cost of £180,000. The walls in the wards are so thin that nurses can't put up shelves on
which to store handbooks. The lack of storage spaces means that equipment lines the corridors.
Because of the appalling conditions, staff morale is at rock bottom. 'We have a corner in our department where
people just go to cry. One colleague was there last week saying they're trying to kill us. The only happy people
around here are those that have handed their notice in,' said one member of staff.
It's not just the nurses and ancillary staff who are driven to distraction by the conditions of working under PFI.
Doctors are starting to speak out.
Dr Paul Dyson, chairman of the infirmary's medical committee, said recently: 'The developers always think of the
bottom line. You have to hold a gun to their head to get them to repairanything. If this is what Blair has in mind
for the NHS, watch out.'
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001
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Terrie Templeton WTO Watch Qld gumbus@powerup.com.au