Ambulance strikers in bid to break deadlock

Hopes rose last night for an early settlement to the ambulance drivers strike in County Durham. The 325 strikers asked council chairman Councillor Don Watson to intervene to try to break the deadlock between the men and the health committee.

And then both sides got round the table for the first time since the strike began Monday.

But late last night Councillor Robson warned that there was no possibility of a settlement before tomorrow. Earlier the men had accused `county medical officer Dr Stanley Ludkin of using smear tactics to try to prejudice public opinion.

They denied his claim that pickets delayed admission of a patient suffering a coronary thrombosis to a Chester-Le-Street hospital on Tuesday.

Meanwhile the first casualty handled by the volunteer ambulance drivers in Durham died in hospital yesterday.

Housewife Mrs Margaret Walton daughter of a county council health official was knocked down outside her home in Hylton Road Ferry-Hill on Monday.

There were more angry scenes at depots throughout the county yesterday as irate pickets challenged volunteer crews reporting for duty.

A crowd surrounded a volunteer male nurse at the Wheatley Hill depot and threats were made after he refused to give his name.

The men have planned a mass meeting and protest march tomorrow. The strikers will walk from their temporary headquarters in a local working men’s club and demonstrate outside County Hall.

Ambulance men in 13 more areas have joined the dispute and the federation of Ambulance Personel demanded yesterday that the Government should intervene immediately to prevent a worsening service throughout Britain.

The call came in a state by the Unions general secretary Mr Ernest Alan-Brook who wants Social Services Secretary Sir Keith Joseph to step in.

Ambulancemen in 24 areas, nearly a 5th of England’s ambulance authorities, are now operating accident and emergency services only.