Students, doctors and nurses will take to the streets in Rome on 5 December

On Saturday 5 December, students, doctors and nurses will gather in Rome to “defend the right to healthcare and the future of the National Health Service”. The march will set off at 3 pm from Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II and end in Via dei Fori Imperiali.

The organisers comprise 27 organisations, including trade unions and associations, “regardless of role or trade union affiliation”. Their call to the government is to “defend the right to healthcare and the future of the National Health Service”. The organisers of the demonstration state that the National Health Service “belongs to everyone: to those who provide care every day and to those who need care. Today, this common good has been weakened by years of policies characterised by insufficient investment in public health and a failure to value staff in hospitals, outpatient clinics, community healthcare, training and research. It is the public – that is, all of us – who are paying the price”.

“To those who work and study in the healthcare sector, we say: you are not alone,” write the organisers. “To those awaiting an appointment, hospital admission or care, we say: it cannot be a lottery. Health cannot depend on income or postcode: there is a right to care and a right to provide care.”

In a joint statement, the trade unions representing doctors and nurses announce that “the public health service will make its voice heard, demonstrating with pride that it is the National Health Service and with the firm conviction that the system must be defended and strengthened. Driving this mobilisation are the hope and determination to make all this possible once again, because we are – and always will be – the National Health Service”. The initiative is open to all citizens who wish to take to the streets “to defend the public health service”.