On Wednesday the 24th of May there was a meeting of Nursing Students at the
University of East Anglia in Norwich. The meeting, which was arranged by the
the normally reactionary Student Union, was the result of sustained pressure
by the increasingly militant trainee nurses. It came as a result of the
compulsory redundancy (a.k.a. sacking) of 18 members of staff.
At the meeting Vice Chancellor Bill Macmillan attempted to justify the
cuts, saying they were "neccesary in an increasingly dynamic environment".
He stated that "every year less and less people want to do nursing" but he
did not draw the glaringly obvious conclusion that the scandalously low pay
of nurses had something to do with this.
After the academics had made their points the meeting was opened to the
floor. Nurses from the annex in Kings Lynn asked if it would close and that they would therefore have to drive nearly 50 miles to Norwich each day. When
they were told that Kings Lynn was going to close, a mood of anger filled
the room. When the academics said that it was O.k. because they were going
to lay on a free bus service a particulary militant nurse heckled "what
good is that if your trying to raise three kids". Astonishingly the
University is misleading this year's intake of students due to arrive in
September by not telling them anything about the imminent closure.
What saddened me most about the meeting was the fact that most of the
academics seemed to think these cuts were inevitable. I intervened and
stated that far from being inevitable these cuts were a result of the
attempt of the government to slowly relinquish responsiblity for health care
and pass it to the private sector. I pointed out that in nations such as
Holland and Sweden where they tax the rich more, there are much better
health systems. My intervention seemed to really annoy the academics who
accused me of making political points, thereby causing the absurd
implication that their decision to fire 18 members of staff was somehow
apolitical.
After the meeting we set up a stall to sell 'Socialist Appeal'. The
£200,000 per annum Vice Chancellor walked past and in an act of insane
optimism we attempted to sell him a copy of the Appeal. Unsurprisingly we
were greeted with a big fat 'No'.
