How a week in hospital changed my mind on the doctors’ strike

(but not in the way you think)

This New Year’s Eve, i woke up feeling strange. There’d be no party for me; i felt sick and dizzy. i found it difficult to breathe. Assuming it must be an asthma attack, i used the puffers i always have with me. Nothing. i called the nurse at my respite home in London. (i’m here undergoing physiotherapy after breaking my back in November). The nurse dialled 111. They told him to dial 999. The ambulance and two young paramedics arrived with astonishing speed. They bundled a few essentials — toothbrush, phone, iPad, chargers, drugs — into a bag and rushed me out to the ambulance. (No clean nightie or underwear, though, as i discovered later to my cost.)

The junior doctors hadn’t yet started their strike, but A&E was chaos. There were so many people waiting for help that the limited space at Barnet hospital was overwhelmed.

i must have been considered an emergency, because i was rushed into a bed in what can only be described as a waiting ward. it’s where they give you the best treatment possible while you wait for a bed on a proper ward.

i remember very little of the next 24 hours except that my sons were there, i slept, and at some point a young doctor with a squeaky voice whispered ‘pneumonia’ in my ear.

Despite being away with the fairies on whatever drugs they’d given me, the word pneumonia filled me with fear and a degree of fury.

FOR goodness sake, I was jabbed beyond reason. I’d had the Covid vaccine, the flu jab and a pneumonia jab that I thought would protect me, too. How could I be lying here, gasping on oxygen, desperately trying to breathe?

I’ve since discovered I had double pneumonia, which is when the infection inflames the air sacs in both lungs making it very difficult to catch your breath.

At some point on New Year’s Day, a bed was found for me on the high intensity Ward.

We were now two days away from the start of the six- day junior doctors’ strike due at 7am on January 3. All was as expected when the consultant came on his rounds. he was surrounded by a group of eager young juniors, all listening carefully to diagnoses and treatments.

Not that any of them really needed to know anything about us, i thought to myself.

After all, they wouldn’t be around if we needed them later in the week. They’d be outside, picketing, demanding what seemed an unreasonable 35 per cent pay rise.

My former support for them wavered, perhaps selfishly.

When the strike began, the atmosphere on the ward changed dramatically. Nurses were busier than ever. The consultant came to see us alone and already looked exhausted. he was responsible for so many patients in grave need of attention. it was for him to decide what antibiotics were needed when. should they be oral or intravenous? had he ordered any tests that might be required? (in my case, an echo scan of the heart.)

A junior doctors’ strike was no time to be seriously ill in hospital, even though the consultant filled me with confidence. he gave his time to every patient. As my breathing improved, he reduced the amount of oxygen i needed, eventually switching it off altogether. i was moved to a less high intensity ward and cared for most attentively by hardworking nurses.

After six days of the best of care, i was declared fit to go home — yet my discharge would not mean the consultant would find his work any easier. Across the weekend and until Tuesday morning, there would be no junior doctors to ease his burden and there would be more desperate patients, as frightened as i had been, needing the

kind of care and attention i’d had. Experiencing a virtually doctor-free ward was a sobering reminder of just how vital our young doctors are to the Nhs — and, despite everything i witnessed, i now find myself a staunch supporter of their fight for better pay.

They are the brightest and best and have worked incredibly hard to arrive at the positions they’re in.

They do tremendously long hours. They’re in their late 20s and early 30s, perhaps longing to settle into solid relationships, have a home and maybe a family.

i spoke to a couple while they were still at work during those first few days and asked them how much money they actually have to live on. Until recently they were on £14 an hour. According to the BMA’s campaign last year that was a lower hourly rate than some baristas in Pret a Manger.

JUNIOR doctors have in fact received two pay rises since 2022 bringing the starting salary for a junior doctor to more than £32,000. But this is still not enough.

They need a decent pay rise, but i doubt they’ll achieve the 35 per cent they originally demanded.

Yet the Nhs cannot manage without them. We, the patients, need them. We don’t want them to go to Australia for more money and sunshine. i want the BMA to get real, sit round the negotiating table and agree a decent rise for these vital young people.

The Nhs, as i’ve experienced in recent months, is far too valuable to be wrecked by a radical, angry, underpaid generation of doctors. They deserve more. Now, please, get together and work out how much more — for everyone’s sake.