Terry Cooper speaks (Episode 11 of 12); United front against fascism conference

First of all I'd like to do away with this doctor's stuff. I'm turning to my brothers and my sisters. I think doctors have got to realize. That there's no elitist barrier that there's nothing special about doctors and doctors are going to have to decide whether they want to be part of the problem or part of the solution. When we talk about health we have to talk about health as it's used by the ruling class as an instrument of class oppression. That includes the health industry that includes every aspect of health not only how doctors treat patients the way pharmaceutical companies make money out of the suffering of people in the prices they charge for their buck there. The way that help is used as a regressive instrument does it with help from the people who are busted on the streets. How is it withheld from the people in the ghettos who are beaten every day by the pigs who infiltrate to get all we have to deal with that. Most importantly we have to deal with how health

is denied or supplied with a profit motive to the people. That's exactly what is done. There is no health given away in this country. Health care supplied to make profit by the ruling class and also to keep the working class in the black and brown brothers and sisters down. We have to do something about that. We have to understand that when people go to hospitals the county hospitals that are supposed to be free but they're alienated they are made to feel like dirt. And most important they receive veterinary medicine. Why should one person who is able to afford better care be able to get care from from the best physicians under the best facilities. Well those who suffer are denied that kind of care and county in overcrowded general hospitals. We have to deal with. How about health workers health workers are most mostly in this country unorganized predominantly black and brown.

Workers. Fantastic potential for organization and yet the system sees that somehow. And that's where an awful lot of repression is brought to bear. Look at the strike in South Carolina how much brute force is used to put down that's right. There's something the system fears in the organization of health workers. Laws in most states in this country prohibit organizing of workers at most hospitals because their county or state facilities. Those kind of laws are a parameter of how the system fears the organization of health workers and it is their right. There's a lot of danger in the organization of health workers to the system. Mostly health workers because they're mostly black and brown are repressed because of the basic racism in the system more deeply. Health workers if they are able to organize will be able to work in a significant way to change and bring down this capitalist imperialist system.

It's because in this country profit is valued more than human life. Then they help us prostituted in such a way that the pigs are able to use mace to protect the interests of this rotten capitalist system. Because of this the napalm is used to protect to protect the interests of the ruling class of this country and to wage genocidal wars of imperialism. This has got to be stopped. The organization of health workers was given a big boost by the organization in New York at the Lincoln Hospital mental health workers. Very exciting thing happen. Two hundred black and Puerto Rican health workers decided they would no longer follow the lead of the administration and took over the mental health center Lincoln Hospital. They kicked out the administration they set up their own health services. They had doctors who volunteered to. Provide care under a worker run hospital and they set to work and they did a fine

job. Only because of the repressive means used by the state in the city to shut this down did it really fail. One of the basic problems in the failure of this effort was that the workers did not have enough time and had not laid enough groundwork to reach the community because the community is a very vital. The workers have got their health to be worried about in the community a community of workers has got their health to worry about and alliance between the interests of the community and of the workers is a very fundamental point in the organization and the demand that people link in hospitals. This is not able to be sure this holds great possibility and should be looked upon as the movement as a form of organization. The New York Times by the way some benevolent doctors

to provide them some health care they've got to demand the health care that is rightfully theirs. And a lot of places in this country there's a health clinic starting on the Black Panther Party is starting some clinics in many places around the country. An awful lot of groups are studying these kind of free clinics for the people. This is generally a good movement. It generally provides a service that's very necessary for the people. If doctors were supplying the kind of service that people need maybe Brother Huey P. Newton wouldn't be in jail now. These clinics have got to be developed with a community based they have to be initiated and run by the community. The doctors have to be supplying a service as an outside consultant. However they should have no say in the running of the clinic doctors only know about treating people. And they should be made to treat people and the community is to decide what the definition of help is and how that help is going to be provided.

The main point that I would like to make is the point I have made about the Lincoln Hospital experience and that is that in the future in the organizing of health industry in which a lawful lot of us in the movement have to go into there has to be a constant struggle for our worker community alliances being the fact in common that they are all patients. The health industry has fantastic potential for organisation because of the fact that it is mostly unorganized. There is no union start up. They'll be mostly black and brown but the unions will have no kin as most unions existing now do and the bureaucracy has not had time to develop issues like racism and imperialism war is going to be central to this struggle until the organizing of health workers. And this is an area in which we have to concentrate. The people have got to start demanding that health care that is theirs and cut out all the shit that the ruling class is giving them about doling out health care as a gift. Thank you.