[Srlcwelcomingcommittee] Press advisory for This Friday: Second Line for Healthcare and Education!]

[noah]

-

Second Line for Healthcare & Education!
Friday, April 9, 5:30 pm, Lafayette Square Park in New Orleans
Please spread the word... re-mail & forward! More press = betterrrr

There's going to be a big, crazy second line in the CBD on Friday: the
Stooges Brass Band, the Free Agents Brass Band, and a level of
ass-shaking the business district hasn't seen since the Second Line to
Reopen Charity. We're going to party and rage down Poydras, and we're
going to show the boy prince Bobby Jindal that the people of Louisiana
have had it with his policies of privatization.

The Southern Republican Leadership Conference (SRLC)  takes place from
April 8-11 in New Orleans, and is the largest gathering of Republican
leadership short of the presidential convention. As Bobby Jindal is
groomed for higher office, the Second Line for Healthcare & Education
is our opportunity to present a unified response to Jindal's assault
on Lousiana's state hospital system & public education.

Join the SRLC Welcoming Committee, some of New Orleans' finest brass
bands and a whole lot of pissed-off, high-stepping citizenry on
Friday, April 9, as we let the SRLC know what we think of Jindal's
efforts to dismantle public education, healthcare, and other Louisiana
public services. Under the bright lights, let's give Jindal and all
his GOP cronies-- Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, Rick
Santorum et al.-- the big loud New Orleans welcome they deserve.

Our message is clear: Stop gutting our public schools and
universities, stop destroying access to health care, re-open Charity
Hospital!

The SRLC Welcoming Committee is a broad coalition of local educators,
healthcare workers, students and other Louisianians, as well as
members of the Committee to Reopen Charity Hospital, Save UNO, the
Iron Rail Collective, Pax Christi, and many others.

- Meet at 5:30 pm
- Step-off at 6:00 pm

Route (0.4 miles):
- Start at Lafayette Square Park at St. Charles Ave. and Lafayette
- March down Camp St. to Poydras St.
- March down Poydras to the Hilton Riverside Hotel

This is a legal, permitted march.

Latest info at http://southernpeople.wordpress.com
Our Facebook Event Page:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=106484989383993
Tweet us! >>  http://bit.ly/uheardme

Background:

Last year Jindal shut down the New Orleans Adolescent Hospital, the
ONLY public mental health hospital in the metro area. He refuses to
rebuild and reopen New Orleans' Rev. Avery C. Alexander Charity
Hospital, and now the Earl K. Long Charity Hospital in Baton Rouge is
being squeezed dry and shuttered up. Both non-profit and for-profit
hospitals in Louisiana are bleeding red ink. Healthcare in New Orleans
and Louisiana is in crisis!

On the education front, the University of New Orleans, already reeling
from millions in cuts, already eliminating core departments, has had
more than $13 million in further cuts since the beginning of the
academic year. UNO is being destroyed.

At the beginning of the academic year in August 2009, Delgado
Community College had to turn away 1500 applicants because of
insufficient building space. It's almost five years after Katrina &
the failure of the federal levees, and the campus remains severely
crippled.

At Southern University at New Orleans, the majority of students and
faculty still attend classes in trailers. SUNO has experienced no real
recovery whatsoever.

All of this is unacceptable, and the blame rests on Jindal.

>From an article in the March 28th Times-Picayune, "Jindal moves to
privatize many services"
(
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1269757842162310.xml&coll=1
)

"Overall, Jindal's $24.2 billion budget proposal calls for eliminating
nearly 3,000 state jobs in the 2010-11 fiscal year that begins July
1."

" In Baton Rouge, an estimated 500 civil servants who now work at Earl
K. Long doing everything from nursing to administration will be
displaced when that facility closes. "

"Similarly, the civil servants who make up a significant chunk of the
2,300-person workforce at the Interim LSU Public Hospital in New
Orleans will no longer be state employees..."

"...the administration is proposing what officials say are the biggest
changes to the state's mental-health system in generations. The
Department of Health and Hospitals is planning to discharge 118 people
from state-run psychiatric hospitals... while another 138
institutional beds would be transferred to a private operator..."

"Rep. Tom McVea, R-St. Francisville, said the downsizing at East
Louisiana State Hospital -- a state-run psychiatric hospital in his
district -- will have lasting effects on his rural community as up to
300 state jobs are lost."


* Common Ground Health Clinic
1400 Teche St, New Orleans, LA 70114
(504) 361-9800
email: healthalgiers at yahoo.com
www.cghc.org
_____________________________________________
email: healthalgiers at yahoo.com
www.cghc.org
_____________________________________________
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