Doctors Strike

[Danger-Mouse]

 

 

plenty of people do longer hours and dont bitch about it and dont earn the money they will over 30 / 40 years with a pension that would choke a donkey

 

I have zero sympathy or support for their pay demands as regards weekends. I`ve had plenty of jobs with long hours where I`ve had to work weekends and I`ve never received a penny extra for doing so. They chose the profession knowing full well that people aren`t just sick during the week.

[vole]

Been in healthcare at sharp end 30+ years . Would never strike btw . These are intelligent and reasoned professionals and there are 1000s of them . No splits in ranks and quietly supported by consultants. They won't be baton charged into submission and they are an asset that can and will walk if they have to . I believe they really are trying to avert something catastrophic . I also know that if life were at risk they would come in from the picket lines . Not the Governments proudest moment to push Doctors of all people into striking . Of course it depends on your politics if you want bar code health care for the wealthy or a decent fair system . I think they have locked horns with the wrong people as they will never win on the public support or integrity stakes . Governments come and go but these people are the basis of healthcare for decades to come and you would be well advised to listen to them . All doctors bar GPs and Consultants were out today ,it is a massive action ,the hospital corridors are empty . History in the making here one way or another . Get Obama back to sort em out Dave .Happy days . Can't wait till tomorrow , no coffee queue .

[Lloyd90]

If doctors believe they are underpaid and overworked my other half would gladly swap places with them. She works 7 days a week, 8 hours a day on minimum wage. She looks after dementia patients she spends all day undressing them and washing **** off them, she strips down soiled beds and washes bedding and gets on her hands and knees and scrubs carpets when they **** on the floor.

we may live together but we don't have a life together, in 20 years together we've never had a holiday, only been out for a meal once. No matter how hard they may think they work there's always someone working harder for so much less.

 

Supply and demand, unfortunately you don't have to be highly skilled, intelligent or under go many many years of university to spend all day "cleaning up **** "

 

If the prospects are so great then go enroll her to medical school ?!

 

And for the record I'm supporters be of all healthcare and social care/workers, they're over stretched and under paid!

[Psyxologos]

People tend to over simplify things. For someone to become a doctor, they have to be highly intelligent, extremely hard working, and then spend a long time in university, and even longer as a junior doctor becoming experts in their chosen field. During their medical training (post university) they work weekends, nights, long days. Their decisions are very often the only thing that makes the difference between life and death. They do not take such responsibility lightly, and the emotional load on top of the physical exhaustion is often crippling.

 

Comparing the workload and the nature of work of a doctor to any other job (perhaps with the exception of people who hold other people's lives in their hands) is a very unfortunate way of looking at things. If doctors have it so easy, or you think your craft/manual work can come even close to the amount of commitment or responsibility a doctor needs to undertake day in and day out from the age of 23 or so onwards, then perhaps encourage one of your children, if they are intelligent, hard working and selfless enough to enrol in the medical school. Then you will be able to see things from a different perspective when they are taking place a bit closer to home.

[Danger-Mouse]

People tend to over simplify things. For someone to become a doctor, they have to be highly intelligent, extremely hard working, and then spend a long time in university, and even longer as a junior doctor becoming experts in their chosen field. During their medical training (post university) they work weekends, nights, long days. Their decisions are very often the only thing that makes the difference between life and death. They do not take such responsibility lightly, and the emotional load on top of the physical exhaustion is often crippling.

 

Comparing the workload and the nature of work of a doctor to any other job (perhaps with the exception of people who hold other people's lives in their hands) is a very unfortunate way of looking at things. If doctors have it so easy, or you think your craft/manual work can come even close to the amount of commitment or responsibility a doctor needs to undertake day in and day out from the age of 23 or so onwards, then perhaps encourage one of your children, if they are intelligent, hard working and selfless enough to enrol in the medical school. Then you will be able to see things from a different perspective when they are taking place a bit closer to home.

 

No one ever said it was easy to become, or to be a doctor. However they chose that career path knowing what it entailed. They accepted the years at university and the time as a junior doctor. They accepted that they would have to work long hours and they would know roughly how much they could expect to earn as their career progressed. They also accepted that people`s lives would be in their hands.

 

I don`t dispute for one minute that a doctor`s hourly rate should be higher than that of many other professions. What I do dispute is that their rates for working weekends should be paid at a higher rate when many other workers receive no extra renumeration for working those same hours. Why is a doctor`s weekend more valuable than that of Joe Bloggs the factory worker or shop assistant?

[Laird Lugton]

Indeed Danger-Mouse, we should bring everyone down to the same level! Glad to see the Government practising socialism.....*

 

*sarcasm alert

[toontastic]

 

 

If the prospects are so great then go enroll her to medical school

She's in her sixties, needs both her hips replacing so not quite university material.

[Vince Green]

This is the real reason they don't want to have the weekends included in their official hours

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11806235/NHS-locum-doctor-paid-11000-to-work-a-weekend.html

 

this is exceptional hence it making the papers but £1000+ a shift is typical

[poontang]

My local hospital had a full compliment of junior doctors yesterday.

 

Perhaps other trusts could learn a thing or two from Holby City.

[TONY R]

To hear those young doctors talk you would think the government were being unreasonable asking them to do more work for less money. What is this country coming to.

[Vince Green]

To hear those young doctors talk you would think the government were being unreasonable asking them to do more work for less money. What is this country coming to.

Actually the new contract is an 11% pay increase for an average two to four hours less per week. Their only gripe is it includes more weekends. Its petulance, the BMA were determined that they were going to get their own way on every single point and when they didn't get exactly what they wanted on weekend pay they threw all their toys out of the pram and stamped their feet.

If the government had given them what they wanted on weekend pay rates they would have taken it and that would have been the end of the story. All this stuff about saving the NHS is cobblers, self justification, they just wanted more money and didn't get it. Now they think they can bully their point home.

Edited April 27, 2016 by Vince Green

[Mark74]

This is the real reason they don't want to have the weekends included in their official hours

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11806235/NHS-locum-doctor-paid-11000-to-work-a-weekend.html

 

this is exceptional hence it making the papers but £1000+ a shift is typical

This is typical for Locum Dr's - who are brought in to cover when the regular NHS Dr's are not there to man the shift (due to sickness or staff shortages). They get paid more as thier hours are not guaranteed and are "on call" to go anywhere within the hospital or trust. Bit like Nurses, if one is off work they have to contact agencies or Bank nurses who come in to cover. Again these get paid more due to the nature of them being able to come in at a moments notice. On my wife's ward there are more agency nurses than NHS normally as they can't hire anyone.

This is not good for patient care as the temporary staff come and go, rather than being based on the ward permanently.

 

Again we hear they are going to work less hours...but nobody seems to be able to explain how the same amount of staff can do the same amount of work during the week days but then cover weekends and yet still work less hours....

Edited April 27, 2016 by Mark74

[ShootingEgg]

Im sat in one of the Bristol hospitals nie for a routine yearly check... And it os very quiet... And i mean VERY quiet... A bit unnerving...

[Houseplant]

I think most people have made up their minds on this one. I will reiterate one point I made on the previous thread as the issue of "overtime" does seem to confuse a lot of people. I think the phrase has been used by the government in a deliberately disingenuous manner.

 

The extra money earned for working out of hours is called banding. This is where the government wants to reduce costs. Banding may be 0 - 50% of basic pay (sometimes more), but basic pay is low by anybody's standards. Regardless, particular jobs are banded and individual doctors have no say in how much out of hours work they do, or indeed how much they earn. It is not the same as overtime.

Edited April 27, 2016 by Houseplant

[Sou'Wester]

To hear those young doctors talk you would think the government were being unreasonable asking them to do more work for less money. What is this country coming to.

Everybody in the public sector, military, police, fire service, nurses are being asked to do more for less. its not right but a general strike by junior doctors only damages the people they state they're trying to help, which is the public.

[TONY R]

The Government need our support they have to save the NHS money don’t grow on trees, the Government did a great job of taking all the money off those work shy cripples and such like, fair play they jump on these money grabbing quack docs now.

You give it to them David you tell them lad.

[Laird Lugton]

After all with the financial crisis they didn't give any money to the bankers at all, but the bankers have given us lots of money back!

 

Oh, hang on....

[grrclark]

 

Well, it is true. You may not believe it is, but that does not make it untrue. When someone wants to run a 24/7 business but does not want to invest in more personnel, the existing manpower will be overstretched, will be tired, will have low morale and will make mistakes.

 

This is what this is all about. More doctors. hunt wants to run more services without hiring more people to carry out these jobs. So he accuses doctors of being unreasonable.

 

It is an offence for a truck driver to drive longer than a set amount of hours. There is a reason for this, and it is fatigue.

 

Doctors are not like any other profession. The only way you can understand it is if you ever find yourself in a situation where you need the skills, experience and help they and only they can provide.

In respect to the current strike my last post is accurate, it is a single issue strike about Saturday pay rates.

 

The issues that you talk about may well be a real and genune concern, but they are absolutely and fundamentally not what this strike is about.

 

All of the initially disputed points covering working hours, patient safety, doctor safey, etc were agreed by the BMA and incorporated into the contract.

 

So to be absolutely and precisly clear the BMA have no issue with the split of working hours, rotas, shift patterns, fatigue, etc because they have agreed to all of those points and that is incorporated into the contract.

 

I will repeat the one and only issue that was not agreed is the rate of pay for Saturdays, nothing else. This is a single issue strike.

 

The mandate for the strike is a lack of complete agreement with the outstanding point being pay, ergo the strike is about pay.

 

If anyone else is striking for the reasons you mention they are kidding themselves on. In fact if they are striking for those reasons they ought to take it up with the BMA as it is they who have sold them down the river.

[grrclark]

Actually the new contract is an 11% pay increase for an average two to four hours less per week. Their only gripe is it includes more weekends. Its petulance, the BMA were determined that they were going to get their own way on every single point and when they didn't get exactly what they wanted on weekend pay they threw all their toys out of the pram and stamped their feet.

If the government had given them what they wanted on weekend pay rates they would have taken it and that would have been the end of the story. All this stuff about saving the NHS is cobblers, self justification, they just wanted more money and didn't get it. Now they think they can bully their point home.

Absolutely agree.

 

The BMA have been manifest in their failure to tackle the working routine for junior doctors over 30+ years with the respective governments if the day.

 

Senior clinical management in the NHS are as equally culpable.

 

I have huge symapthy for the junior doctors and I do think that the current framework is not particularly fit for purpose, but the most recent strike action is shameful opportunism from the BMA and they are peddling a disingenuous and meretricious argument to their members and the public.

 

Dress it up however they please this is an issue of pay and pay alone.

 

I don't actually have an issue with that either, but they know that would carry little sympathy amongst the public so the argument is moved onto something else.

 

I do wonder if there had been a hefty pay increase on the table would we have heard any of these most noble of arguments surrounding patient safety and the righteous fight for the greater good or would they have snapped up the offer and not said a thing?

[old man]

 

 

 

I don`t dispute for one minute that a doctor`s hourly rate should be higher than that of many other professions. What I do dispute is that their rates for working weekends should be paid at a higher rate when many other workers receive no extra renumeration for working those same hours. Why is a doctor`s weekend more valuable than that of Joe Bloggs the factory worker or shop assistant?

 

Possibly ? because a doctor stands more chance of actually saving your life than any other worker?

[Vince Green]

 

Possibly ? because a doctor stands more chance of actually saving your life than any other worker?

Or killing you? Arguable both ways really. Life saving surgery? Door one, Liverpool Pathway? door two

[Danger-Mouse]

 

Possibly ? because a doctor stands more chance of actually saving your life than any other worker?

 

That`s their job, irrespective of what day of the week it is. I`ve already said I have no argument against them being well paid. A doctors time at work has a high value but that value does not increase just because it`s a weekend.

[TONY R]

Toall you striking junior Doctors, 100% behind you, But why try to nagotiate with this mongrel government and its suporters. People need your help and skills in other countrys just bail now leave this zoo to its own inevitable end go some where you can be proud to call home and where you have a better chance of getting the true respect you deserve. Canada Australia Tasmania New zealand all are suitable candidates for a move along with a few others. Go for it young Doctors there is nothing but hard times and missery for you here. They just dont deserve your skills over here. .

Edited April 27, 2016 by TONY R

[poontang]

 

 

Comparing the workload and the nature of work of a doctor to any other job (perhaps with the exception of people who hold other people's lives in their hands) is a very unfortunate way of looking at things. If doctors have it so easy, or you think your craft/manual work can come even close to the amount of commitment or responsibility a doctor needs to undertake day in and day out from the age of 23 or so onwards, then perhaps encourage one of your children, if they are intelligent, hard working and selfless enough to enrol in the medical school. Then you will be able to see things from a different perspective when they are taking place a bit closer to home.

 

Wow.

 

This has got to rate as the most condescending and ignorant post I've read on here for a long, long time.

[Sou'Wester]

 

Wow.

 

This has got to rate as the most condescending and ignorant post I've read on here for a long, long time.

Glad somebody said it... Edited April 27, 2016 by Sou'Wester