Hospital Campaigners Hold "Die-in" in Lyric Square

W6's 'Walking Wounded' then join march to Trafalgar Square

Save Our Hospitals campaigners protesting about NHS plans to close A&Es and downgrade local hospitals held a "Die-in" in Lyric Square last Saturday September 6, before joining the final section of the People's March for the NHS, walking from Red Lion to Trafalgar Square.

The campaigners, fighting the imminent closure of Hammersmith Hospital A&E and plans to downgrade Charing Cross, had invited local people to protest alongside them, made-up and dressed as the 'Walking Wounded' (pictured below), a reminder of what Save Our Hospitals sees as the potential human cost of government cuts to public health services.

After the dramatic protest in Lyric Square, Save Our Hospitals campaigners - including the Walking Wounded - travelled by public transport to the People's March for the NHS as it reached its destination at Trafalgar Square, where an estimated 5,000 people met to protest about hospital closures and unwanted privatisation of the NHS.

The marchers, led by a group of mums from Darlington, have walked all the way from Jarrow to central London -a 300 mile journey - in three weeks, recreating the famous Jarrow Crusade of 1936 which led to the establishment of the Welfare State after the Second World War.

(The marchers gathered at Trafalgar Square on Saturday)

The crowd were serenaded under Nelson's Column by Billy Bragg, and were also addressed by Joanna Adams, one of the 'Darlomums', Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham, political writer and activist Owen Jones and Hammersmith MP Andy Slaughter. The Walking Wounded were voted the 'best made-up' demonstrators on the march.

You can read Save Our Hospitals' own account of the People's March and the London rally here.

September 8, 2014