Junior Doctors strike

Germanshepherdsmum

‘If this country can afford to pay builders and lorry drivers’ is totally irrelevant. Private sector, market forces. The government has no control over what anyone in the private sector is paid, nor should it. It’s up to the government to determine what public sector employees are paid. I don’t know why you don’t understand the distinction. It’s not about what anyone is worth, it’s about what the employer is able and willing to pay.

Maybe the country should just pay doctors minimum wage then. Why bother paying them anymore? If that’s what the country decides they’re worth, why not?

Well because doctors are highly trained, highly skilled, and in a civilised society, valued and paid appropriately for the highly skilled and trained for work they do. On the other hand……………

Fleurpepper

Sorry, but I don't understand why you don't unerstand that if employers don't pay a decent wage and give decent conditions, be it in the private or state sector, and when market forces indicate a shortage and a need- then they will just walk to better climes.

It is very simple to understand, really.

Quite.

Germanshepherdsmum

‘If this country can afford to pay builders and lorry drivers’ is totally irrelevant. Private sector, market forces. The government has no control over what anyone in the private sector is paid, nor should it. It’s up to the government to determine what public sector employees are paid. I don’t know why you don’t understand the distinction. It’s not about what anyone is worth, it’s about what the employer is able and willing to pay.

Where on earth did I say that? Although you have been saying something akin for many posts- you don't understand why we don't understand! Were you calling us all stupid?

Market forces, supply and demand, apply to all sectors, private or not.

I’m not stupid Fleurpepper. You obviously think I am.

There is a shortage in Europe too- better pay, better conditions- and in many other countries too. They are active in recruiting for the UK, with very generous offers for salary, conditions and relocation.

Market forces- as you say.

Sorry, but I don't understand why you don't unerstand that if employers don't pay a decent wage and give decent conditions, be it in the private or state sector, and when market forces indicate a shortage and a need- then they will just walk to better climes.

It is very simple to understand, really.

‘If this country can afford to pay builders and lorry drivers’ is totally irrelevant. Private sector, market forces. The government has no control over what anyone in the private sector is paid, nor should it. It’s up to the government to determine what public sector employees are paid. I don’t know why you don’t understand the distinction. It’s not about what anyone is worth, it’s about what the employer is able and willing to pay.

Germanshepherdsmum

‘The country’ doesn’t pay the builders and lorry drivers, unless engaged in work for the government.

You’re doing it again Germanshepherdsmum, othering public servants, this thread is about the financial worth of the role of the doctors compared with other groups. The fact that they are paid by the government is completely irrelevant to their worth, I don’t know why you keep making the point.

‘The country’ doesn’t pay the builders and lorry drivers, unless engaged in work for the government.

@ Grammy Grammy . I think junior doctors deserve a decent wage rise . They train for 10 years or more at a great cost to themselves . They haven’t had a decent wage rise since 2008 just dribs and drabs and are well behind where their wages should be . They need to be paid their worth and then we might keep enough of our doctors to staff our GP surgeries and hospitals. Doctors do not have google as their first point of call as you suggest . I am a retired nurse and my daughter is a senior nurse and her wages aren’t a great deal better then when I retired over ten years ago because they have only been given a raise of 1% here and there .
During the junior doctors strike people’s live shouldn’t be more at risk because consultants are covering their shifts .
If this country can pay builders and lorry drivers £1000 a week don’t you think our NHS staff they’re worth .

Fleurpepper

Sorry, just to add, the NHS got 2 for the price of one- GPs had to have someone to take calls when on call, nights and week-ends- which meant that the 'other one' had to do a job they were not trained for, very demanding and stressful + lack of sleep, and for free!

So did the hospital consultant's wife when their DH went in voluntarily to do ward rounds every other Saturday and Sunday and through the night. Usually another irate consultant with a patient with an acute illness.No mobile phones in those days just a bleep.

MaizieD

They do grow nasty and judgemental though
.........................................

you certainly have proved that statement!

Back in the 50s my sole practitioner GP frequently came out at night to give me an injection for a particularly severe asthma attack. Never complained, whatever the hour. He had previously been a missionary in Africa. There was nobody else to cover for him, just his wife to answer the phone if he was out. A lovely man who worked like that until shortly before retirement when he took a rather less lovely partner.

Sorry, just to add, the NHS got 2 for the price of one- GPs had to have someone to take calls when on call, nights and week-ends- which meant that the 'other one' had to do a job they were not trained for, very demanding and stressful + lack of sleep, and for free!

And for the book- those ridiculous and totally disrespectful calls 'worried about slight hair loss, at 4am' - 'got a headache and have no paracetamol, could doc bring some' at 5am, after several emergency calls. 3 am 'can doc come, I have decided to foolw his advice and stop drinking', and so on.

widgeon3

In the 1960s my junior husband doctor was paid less than £2000 a year.
Posted abroad by the army in 1964 we were astounded to be earning more than £3000 p.a. in Singapore
Back to the UK as a g.p in '67 he was paid a little more but I was surprised that as a mother of 3 children under 4 that I was expected to feed the baby at night and also answer the phone requests for the doctor to make a visit.......one of these at 3 am and very angry saying that her daughter had a pimple on her nose' How long has she had it?'...'.About 2 weeks' ........ I was not paid for this service
Not sure where my sympathies lie.

You and I could probably write a book about being a doctor's wife in those years. As said, it was exactly £1000 for 140 hrs a week in 1970- and you just could not live on that in SW London.

Became easier when doing GPtraining 3 year rotation, as we lived in West Midlands- we could not have afforded to live in London or Surrey, where OH grew up.

But yes, being a GP's wife in those days meant being up many times in the night, having to be home whenever OH was on call, 1 night in 3 or 4, and 1 week-end in 3 or 4 - and without any pay at all. It was just 'expected' and you had to do it. Most doctors in those days were married to other doctors or nurses, as they didn't have enough free time to meet anyone else (we met on the train, at Clapham Junction! I was lost...) so at least they had some expertise when they had to pick up the phone when OP out on a call (before reliable mobiles- and before deputising services- when being on call was part of contract). I had to sit up for hours wondering if I had done the right thing, should I have called an ambulance- whilst having a new baby and a toddler who were awaken by the phone, etc. Not a penny for it.

MaizieD Is it nasty and judgmental to hark back to say 30 years ago when somehow my family had a very efficient if stern gp who was so helpful to my young family?

Even younger people are commenting on how very difficult it is to access medical treatments now.

By trying to mute criticism, are we not in danger of making a bad situation much worse?

My mother 91, was rushed to hospital on Wednesday during this strike, the few remaining doctors were very kind and were helped by nurse practitioners doing double shifts. It was still scary. Yes I hope they get a pay rise maybe not as much as asked but no I don’t think striking is the way to do it. Putting patients at risk of unqualified staff whose intentions are good but they are not doctors.

MaizieD

Tax doesn't pay for services, Grantanow. If anything, paying more for public services would greatly increase the tax revenue.

I do not understand why folks cannot grasp this simple exercise of logic.

I wonder if doctors were all private, people would see them in the same way as lawyers and accountants, who don't "produce" anything tangible and can charge what the market will stand.

lemsip

seeing junior doctors picketing outside my hospital the other day I was surprised at the party atmosphere and behavior of them, they were akin to school children not responsible adults as you would expect doctors to be.

Comments such as this are so weird.
One of the things I've observed about Gnet over the years is that fully grown elderly adults can behave exactly like schoolchildren. No-one ever really 'grows up'. They do grow nasty and judgemental, though..

Tax doesn't pay for services, Grantanow. If anything, paying more for public services would greatly increase the tax revenue.

I do not understand why folks cannot grasp this simple exercise of logic.

Of course 'junior' doctors should have a pay increase. However, the fundamental issue underlying all public service poor pay is that the UK has a low growth economy which means less tax to pay for services. Getting more people into work helps boost production but the productivity of the workforce has not significantly increased from the 1980s. There was a leaked report in Mrs Thatcher's time as PM that questioned the policy consequences of a low growth economy and it was hushed up. Governments seem incapable of solving this problem despite promising to do so.

Footballers, film stars, pop singers, etc. are no match for some of the world's billionaires whose wealth exceeds that of small countries and whose money gives them great power.

Not pleasant for sick people, maybe at the end of their lives, or their visitors.

It is true that lots of people's salaries have fallen over the last few years, but, at least at the moment, people in the private sector are getting much higher pay increases than in the public sector.

Junior doctors are not just doctors straight out of training - they may have been working as a doctor for several years. They have to undergo lengthy and rigorous training and most have incurred large debts in the process.

A junior doctor interviewed yesterday said she had worked as a doctor for 6 years and earned £19 an hour. I think that is a paltry sum when you consider not just the length and depth of training but the massive responsibility and pressure that comes with the job. The most junior doctors earn just £14 an hour, and their pay has been diminished by 26% over the last few years.