GPs took an oath and must fulfil it
IDON’T like having to lay into GPs because I know there are many more good ones than bad. But if they don’t want to be branded as a bunch of overpaid part-timers who are refusing to see patients face to face because they don’t want the inconvenience of having to re-engage with the hoi polloi, then they need to have a word with their militant unions.
It’s these unions that are screaming blue murder because Health Secretary Sajid Javid dared to tell GPs to get back into the surgery and see patients – or be named and shamed.
And Javid isn’t asking them to do it for free or out of any sense of vocation – he’s putting up £250million to get them extra help. But no, it seems the unions rather like the lax new arrangements, despite the fact vital symptoms are being missed, treatments are being delayed and people are dying.
The unions reckon that, postCovid, actually having to be in the same room as patients – talking to them, teasing out of them what their REAL problems might be – is an affront to their professionalism and a waste of their time. They’re insisting GPs can do their job just as effectively via a computer screen – which simply isn’t true.
Don’t they understand there are certain patients who can’t negotiate digital platforms? Even more who don’t feel comfortable talking about incredibly personal problems via a computer screen?
But Dr Richard Vautrey of the BMA reckons the Government is out of touch with what people want and has slated its “preoccupation” with faceto-face appointments.
What the hell is he talking about “preoccupation”? This is how medicine has been “done” for centuries. It’s how doctors form relationships with patients, how they detect what really ails them, how they see stuff the patient might not and properly look at all aspects of them. It’s how they detect symptoms that could save lives.
It’s not the Government that’s out of touch – it’s the BMA and the Royal College of General
Practitioners. Aren’t they listening to the armies of distraught people talking about loved ones who’ve died having been denied access to their GP?
GPs are on £100,000 plus a year and, yes, they’re busy. But if they didn’t realise people get sick all the time and that they’d be busy – they shouldn’t have gone into medicine.
Sajid Javid is right to call them out on this. And doctors have no right to be affronted at being told to do what’s best for their patients.
I know there’s a GP shortage so why then are so many of them choosing to go part time? Why make a bad situation worse?
The Hippocratic Oath says: “Do no harm.” Well the heart-breaking stories we’re hearing every day are testament to the fact that devastating harm IS being done to people who’ve been denied proper access to their GP. It’s a
ADELE’S new single, Easy On Me, was released at midnight yesterday. As I write it’s had 29 million views on YouTube. And just like everything Adele writes, the song is rip-at-yourheart fantastic. So did we really need the weeks of hype beforehand – the tantalising video clip of her waving six-inch finger nails out of a car window, another of her singing a line from the single? There were endless social media teases and a tsunami of interviews about how her marriage break-up inspired the album. Enough now. Adele is a genius. She doesn’t need the kind of PR hype that lesser artists do. We’re already on board.
Just get the album out and let us hear it!
basic human right for patients to see their doctor. And they shouldn’t be made to feel like an inconvenience because they’re frightened and want to see them face to face.
When I was a kid doctors were seen as gods, untouchables who shouldn’t be questioned. But back then they worked five days a week, evenings and weekends, and came to your home, none of which they do now.
I say again, I know many GPs work their socks off. I know many care deeply about the people in their community. But no GP can pretend that video consultations are any substitute for the real thing.
As for the unions – they’re destroying the reputation of a profession that since the beginning of time has been held in high regard. They’re making doctors look like they just don’t care. Is that really what GPs want?