North East doctors and health workers took a stand against nuclear weapons with a demonstration on the Millennium Bridge.
Campaign group Medact North East, which is made up of GPs, pharmacists, junior doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, and public health professionals, unveiled a banner on the bridge in support of the UN Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
The banner, which read “Health Workers for the Nuclear Weapons Ban”, aimed to draw attention to their campaign which calls on the Government to support the UN's nuclear weapon ban treaty, which would make nuclear weapons illegal. This would give them the same status as chemical and biological weapons, cluster bombs and landmines.
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Medact says the UK Government has not signed the UN Nuclear Ban Treaty and is refusing to send an observer to the first meeting of signatories taking place in Vienna next week. The group is calling on the Government to attend the meeting.
Demonstrators have also sent letters to North East councils and MPs urging them to support the UN Treaty through the ICAN Cities Appeal. Despite support from individual MPs and councillors, the group says that councils in the region have not yet officially declared their support for the ban, which came into force last year.
Dr Liz Waterston, 78, is a retired GP from Heaton, who has spent decades campaigning against the use of nuclear weapons. She joined Medact members on the Millennium Bridge for the demonstration on Saturday. Liz, a Medact and IPPNW member, said: “Once again we are looking into the abyss of nuclear war. I have been working to abolish nuclear weapons since the age of 15 and in 2021, at last, we got a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons.
"Now we have to ensure that the Nuclear Weapons States comply with the treaty and destroy their nuclear weapons.”
Medact is a national organisation that brings the health community together to campaign for health justice. Medact North East was formed in the 1980s, and in addition to campaigning against nuclear weapons, it has campaigned for a Green New Deal.
Junior doctor Penny Ellis was among those demonstrating in Newcastle on Saturday. She said: “Nuclear weapons have been a threat for longer than I have been alive. I am deeply concerned that we now live in a world where no head of state can remember Hiroshima.
"As a health worker, I care for sick people daily but I cannot comprehend the human impact of a nuclear disaster. Its scale and severity would overwhelm any health system response.”
Dr Nate Aspray, GP, said the use of nuclear weapons would result in a humanitarian catastrophe. “The escalating risk of the use of nuclear weapons is a threat to the continued health of our planet as a whole," he said.
"While many countries are prepared to use nuclear weapons, their healthcare infrastructure is not and cannot be prepared for the humanitarian catastrophe that would result from the use of just one nuclear weapon within their borders; let alone the far-reaching implications of radiation on the health of women and children.”
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