NTQ! Pods: Thousands protest government plans to close Lewisham Hospital's A&E in London

NTQ! Pods: Danny Boyle sure made the National Health Service look good in his homage to the institution during the Olympics opening ceremony. Yet, under the conservative coalition government NHS funding has also been a victim of austerity.

In south east London, thousands of protesters turned out to show their support for their local hospital in the Borough of Lewisham, which will have its Accident and Emergency Department along with its Maternity ward closed.

The protest was organized by 'Save Lewisham Hospital's A&E', a grassroots group that has been holding public meetings to discuss the closures. Lewisham Hospital's A&E sees some 120,000 patients a year. The closure is also representative of the thousands of cuts that the NHS has faced, which is ultimately leading towards a significantly more privatized healthcare system.

While we Americans are just started to get more equitable healthcare, our British cousins are fighting to keep their healthcare system out of the hands of for-profit companies.

NTQ!'s Heather Turner reports from London.

Across the pond: news roundup

Different countries, same conservative agenda

While a debate rages in the US over the economic future of the state, it's worth taking a look at how things are going for "our closest ally," Great Britain. The government is currently run by a coalition made up of the conservative Tory party and the moderate Liberal Democrat party. However, as everyone knows, it pretty much is the government of the Tories. They didn't get enough of the popular vote to win a majority, but they don't really appear to be in the power-sharing business. Although logically, the Liberal Democrats would have had a more natural partnership with the  Labour party, the Lib Dem leadership instead opted to go to bed with the Tories. The result has been pretty devastating so far, with the exception of the smooth handling of the Olympics, which cannot be considered too much of an exception as the games have not proven to be the magic boon to the economy that was sorely needed.

Instead, the conservative government is on the austerity bandwagon and continuing the path of the Thatcherites: dismantling publicly funded institutions in favor of privatization. It is their belief that private companies operating for-profit can deliver public services more cheaply and more efficiently than can state employees.

With the US Presidential election less than two months away, we should really consider what effects conservative policies are having on economic recovery and on the public. Below are some recent stories which highlights the policies that Tories are pushing (and with a breathtaking speed when compared to the length of time it takes reforms and policy to pass in a Presidential system):

Healthcare:

Britain's National Healthcare Service, or NHS, is not the best of the European healthcare systems. But, it does have all of the perks of being totally free (for now). But despite Danny Boyle's touching homage to the NHS during the Olympic opening ceremonies, the system is under attack and the standards of care are slipping. Nursing staff, holiday pay and wages are being cut, while the government rolls out more market-driven initiatives that will turn doctors into businessmen and the NHS into a partially privatized service. This means that certain services will no longer be free (this process is already occurring), and patients will be directed to privatized for-profit care. The latest news is that some 1200 NHS employees are now working under zero-hour contracts, which are popular with fast food companies like McDonald's. These contracts, which are spreading throughout some NHS trusts, offer no guaranteed hours and thus, no job security.