My fellow doctors are putting greed before their patients

THE British Medical Association’s proposal for strikes by doctors i s nothing short of shameless — for such action would inevitably harm patients.

All i ndustrial action harms consumers, of course. But in the case of doctors, the ‘ consumers’ happen to be the ill and infirm who, by definition, are the most vulnerable members of our society. To threaten and blackmail them is quite simply immoral.

I worked in general practice for 40 years, including 16 years in the NHS, and considered it a privilege to do so. It would never have occurred to me, and probably not to any of my contemporaries, to go on strike. How times have changed.

The ballot on strike action, which has been whipped up by an increasingly militant British Medical Association (BMA) already at odds with the Government over NHS reform, has been called because doctors’ pension arrangements are threatened as part of public sector cutbacks.

The BMA claims that changes to be introduced from 2015 would mean younger doctors had to pay at least £200,000 extra in pension contributions over a lifetime and work an additional eight years, before retiring aged 68.

Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA Council, warns that the pension changes could lead to an exodus of experienced doctors from the NHS. Yet doctors already enjoy

They want to be paid as much as the bankers

some of the most lavish pension arrangements in the public sector. A full-time consultant retiring at 60 today receives an annual pension of more than £48,000, alongside a £143,000 tax-free lump sum.

A doctor joining the new scheme would have to pay more into it and work until he was 68. But he could expect a pension of £68,000 a year.

What we are witnessing is a level of greed among professionals in the health service that would have been i ncomprehensible to so many previous generations of doctors who joined the NHS because they felt they wanted to help people who were sick or in pain.

I have no doubt that the overwhelming majority of students and doctors are still motivated by that sense of wanting to do good, to help ease pain and save lives.

To be fair, what has led some doctors to become money-grabbing militants is not the Government, this or any other. Nor is it specifically the BMA. It is the entitlement culture t hat i s progressively infecting all of society.

As a doctor, I do not consider that I have any ‘ entitlement’. It is my patients who have the entitlement. They are entitled to courteous and professional treatment.

By choosing t o pay f or my services or not — I now work in the private sector as a counsellor — they hold the whip hand.

By choosing to refer their friends to me or not, they have the power to create or destroy my practice. This is the way it should be for all doctors.

Within the NHS, doctors should have no security that is not given to them by their patients. They should not be entitled to a salary unless it reflects the work that they do in response to patient demand.

They should not expect to have a pension for life unless they have earned it in the same way people in the private sector have to.

Above al l , t hey s hould be contributors to our society rather than takers from it. Yet nowadays being a doctor is just another job in the eyes of the BMA and other trades unions in the health care sector.

To those trades unionists I say: how can you do this to a once honourable

GPS are no longer seen as pillars of the community

profession? How can you threaten patients with withdrawal of your services? How can you grandiosely puff yourselves up as protectors when you are, in fact, destroyers?

The BMA’S most wanton act of destruction came in 2004 when it renegotiated the contract for GPS, ensuring they were paid more for doing less.

Today, the average doctors’ salary has reached £110,000 and huge numbers are earning double that.

Yet the traditional out- of-hours service has all but disappeared. Making an appointment to see your doctor has become a gruelling endurance course. The result is that GPS are no longer seen as trusted family doctors — those pillars of the community.

The truth is that high salaries and generous pension arrangements should have come with a commitment to ever greater service to the community. Privileges should be accompanied by responsibilities.

Maybe such beliefs are passé, which would be a tragedy. My parents were missionaries. My guardians, my uncle and aunt, were socialist politicians. I grew up in a culture of caring for other people. I am still committed to that culture.

In a six-month appointment in hospital as a junior doctor, I went home to see my wife and daughter for a total of two afternoons. I was constantly on call day and night. I made no complaint. That is how it was and the training was second to none.

I created the first NHS group medical practice in South Kensington, London. It was hard work. We had high expenses because we were in Central London and therefore had a low income. We made no complaint. We had wonderful lives in the capital city.

At one time as an NHS GP, I was a member of the Inner London Local Medical Committee of the BMA. I resigned when it became clear that the BMA represented doctors’ interests exclusively — and not the patients who were my concern.

I have no loyalty to the BMA or to any other official body. I choose to look after addicts, some of the most demanding, troublesome and disturbed patients of all. My life is dedicated to their care in the way I believe is most helpful to them.

In my work for addicts and their families, I committed myself to a seven-day week. I still practise that. It is my choice.

This brings me back to the biggest cultural change to Britain since I entered medical practice 40 years ago. Young lawyers, accountants and bankers have influenced young doctors, who see their contemporaries with telephone- number incomes. They believe they have the right to the same.

I don’t believe they have that right for a moment. Doctors have the privilege of working in a stimulating and hugely fulfilling environment. I cannot imagine anything more rewarding than helping patients and their families to improve their quality of life so that they are healthier, happier and lead fuller lives.

The BMA clearly does not believe in that privilege. These doctors serve themselves. If I had not already resigned from the BMA, I would do so now on this issue of a ballot for industrial action.