I voted no to striking. We can’t treat our patients as pawns
MY roots are working class. My father was a milkman and my family has a long tradition of trade union activism. But when I was given the opportunity to vote in the British Medical Association (BMA) ballot of junior doctors – due to my decision to retrain in a new speciality during the pandemic – I voted no to strike action without hesitation.
It’s fundamentally wrong for doctors to refuse to work. We have many valid concerns about pay, workload and conditions in hospitals, as well as chronic mismanagement in the NHS, but treating patients as pawns in our campaign is just not right.
The public will see us as mercenary. It’s arrogant of doctors to ignore the fact that medicine still offers a job for life – and a lucrative one. The base starting salary for junior doctors is £30,000, a figure which rises incrementally year-on-year.
This is supplemented by additional payments for being on-call during non-working days or working anti-social hours, such as night shifts. Holiday allowances and sick pay are also generous.
What’s more, junior doctors can potentially earn more than £90,000 a year just four years after completing their training as a GP or a consultant.
Back in the noughties, before becoming a psychiatrist, I worked as a junior doctor. There’s no doubt that now the role is not as well paid. I blame the BMA as well as the Government. The union has allowed pay packages to slide down the scale and now it’s trying to hide its failure with ultraaggressive demands. But to pursue a 35 per cent pay rise during a cost of living crisis is indefensible. It sends a message that doctors care about nothing but money, and that is extremely damaging.
And causing tens of thousands of appointments to be cancelled when waiting lists are at an all-time high is truly shocking.
I feel so strongly about this that I am prepared to cross picket lines. And believe me, that’s not a decision I take lightly.
The real problem – one that shocked me when I returned to training – is the collapse in morale among junior doctors. While we used to endure gruelling 24hour shifts (which have since been rightly binned) we did at least work in close-knit teams and got to know the consultants we learnt from. Now, it’s common to meet senior staff only once or twice before the rotas are scrambled once again.
Worse still is the effect of student debt, which can leave young doctors £100,000 in the red after medical school. It’s crippling, emotionally and financially. The Government used to cover the cost of a university education, including medical school, which fostered a sense of obligation to your employer. That sentiment has vanished now, replaced for many by a deep resentment. The result is that countless doctors quit every year, disillusioned or exhausted. And a higher wage won’t remedy that.
EVEN if we are awarded the 35 per cent increase, a few years down the line there will still be too many doctors leaving the NHS because they are exhausted or frustrated. The BMA should have been more creative in its demands. This would have won far more public support than demanding more cash.
The NHS currently spends £3billion a year on agency staff to cover gaps in rotas. Yet if the Government abolished fees for medical students that could cost a mere £500million. This could be on condition that doctors agree to work for the NHS for a minimum of, say, ten years. If they left earlier, then they’d have to pay some back.
This would solve some recruitment and retention issues, and mean junior doctors start their working lives debt-free. This is what the BMA should demand. To strike for higher pay when so many are struggling simply alienates the people we entered the profession to help: our patients.