Glasgow Association of Mental Health Demonstration

Around 500 people attended the demo on Wednesday 12 November 2014, where UNISON members, service users and members of the public took the message to Glasgow City Councillors that cuts to Glasgow Association of Mental Health (GAMH) services will cost lives. Our demo made the morning radio, press and STV television and we are on the front page of Third Force News where the headline is ‘Cuts Will Cost Lives’!

A small delegation met with Cllr Malcolm Cunning before the demo and he assured representatives from UNISON, GAMH and service users that no political decision has yet been made on the proposed 40% cut to GAMH budgets. The support shown by people from across Glasgow at the demonstration yesterday will have given Cllr Cunning and his colleagues much food for thought and we expect to have further discussions in due course before any firm decisions are taken.

So on this front alone, our campaign has already had an impact as we expected the 40% cuts to have been confirmed by now. We continue to collect petitions and have collected over 2500 signatures to stop GAMH cuts. Please keep up the good work and keep those signatures coming as the political pressure key to preventing the scale of the cuts proposed from happening. The campaign strategy committee will be meeting on Tuesday 18th November to discuss our next steps and we will issue more information then.

Finally, a big thanks is due to everyone who attended and helped out on the day – there are genuinely too many to thank individually. A special thank you is required for our speakers on the day, Julie Ballantyne, Cathy Miller and Brian Smith from UNISON. We also need to thank the UNSION NHS CVS Branch for their financial support with the flags and t-shirts and the UNISON Glasgow City Branch for their support and the use of their PA system. A final special thanks has to go to the GAMH service users who made their own placards and banners – this really added colour to the day.

GAMH Cuts Will Cost Lives!