Greens show sweet support for striking junior doctors

Photo: Darren Robinson

Green Party candidates take cake to junior doctors on strike at Royal Oldham Hospital. PIC shows (front) L-R: Andy Hunter-Rossall (Failsworth East), Jean Betteridge (Medlock Vale), Carla Rengifo (junior doctor), Miranda Meadowcroft (St Mary's).

OLDHAM’S Green Party showed its support for junior doctors striking yesterday and came bearing cake.

A number of the party’s candidates standing in next week’s Oldham Council elections arrived at Royal Oldham Hospital yesterday morning to speak to the doctors striking and to hear their concerns.

To lift their spirits, the Oldham Green Party also offered up cake to the striking doctors.

Miranda Meadowcroft, Green Party candidate for St Mary’s, said: “The Green Party is really clear that it supports the doctors and is worried about the privatisation of the NHS.

Privatisation

“The privatisation has been going on for quite some time and it is possible that some people don’t realise how far it has already gone.

“We are also very concerned with the amount of money being spent on private consultants, who are paid to research costs of delivering services. We want that money to be spent on protecting our services, not talking about them.

“The health service is not something for sale and it is not something that should be open to profit. There’s no need for it to make money, it’s a vital public service which we all rely on.”

The Green Party says it supports the NHS Reinstatement Bill – sponsored by their one MP Caroline Lucas as well as other MPs from cross-parties.

The Bill “seeks to reinstate the NHS based on its founding principles and reverse the creeping marketisation of the health service.”

Campaigners say the Bill would roll back the health service’s “internal market”, end contracting, and return the NHS to purely public provision.

The Bill is also backed by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.