Time we treated doctors like rock stars

I’ve recently finished reading a book called The Butchering Art, about the state of medicine in Victorian Britain. Written by Lindsey Fitzharris, the medical historian, it is not for the faint-hearted, but it provides much food for thought (if food is what you want after reading about the filthy state of hospitals in the 19th century, where they used to find maggots and mushrooms under dirty sheets).

The book focuses primarily on the work of Joseph Lister, who – in common with many of his contemporaries – was rightly treated like a sort of rock star for his work as a surgeon. It’s a shame we don’t still view our medical professionals with such reverence.

This week saw a sneery report about a conference for doctors, including those working in the NHS, taking place in Italy, the not-so-subtle implication being that they are fiddling while Rome burns (or operations are cancelled).

This comes after the Government tried to spin the junior doctors’ strike as medics being lazy and refusing to work weekends.

Anyone who knows an NHS doctor – or indeed who has been under the care of one – will know that it is laughable that they are anything other than hard-working individuals who desperately want to help, but are currently being stymied by an over-complicated system that needs real work done on it, as well as funding.

It does none of us any favours to blame this current crisis on the people who are doing their best to alleviate it.

Will it take a huge flu pandemic for real change to occur in the NHS?

I hope not, but a society that doesn’t value its doctors and nurses seems like a pretty sick one to me.