Junior doctors strike

gn38 if your grandchildren manage to get a training placwe at med school they may be sorely disappointed. Doctors no longer have the status they used to have, you only have to read the comments on this thread and they are certainly not well paid. I suggest they go into banking or recruitment for the money. I doubt they'll enjoy it much when they do their first rectal examination, smell the breath of a patient with a severe lung infection or get covered in body fluids of one sort or another, or have to tell a parent that their beloved child is dead. If I were you I'd have a chat with them to put them straight!

Siope

I think people may die as a result of this strike. I think exponentially more will die without it.

I support it, with deep sadness that the government’s ideology has led to this.

People ARE dying, and this was before the strikes, due to the massive backlogs in A&E

www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/01/up-to-500-deaths-a-week-due-to-ae-delays-says-senior-medic

I have had 24 lots of surgery in 22 years - I have seen the decline. In 2010 it was just getting to be really good, there was a target - 18 weeks from GP referral to treatment and home, and if you weren't getting that, you could challenge it, as I did in 2008 when it would have been 32 weeks, and my hospital were lying in the KPI stats that they were reporting to the Govt. My surgeon came in on his day off and operated on 3 of us ....

I am currently in a 'watch and wait' scenario, waiting and watching for my bowel to strangulate and die as it did in 2020, when I was left screaming in agony for hours in the corridor. I have found quite often that the junior doctors can be quite arrogant - it used to be when I had a blockage, I would go in, I would get sufficient analgesia to allow my bowel to relax and I would be out of their hair within their 4 hour limit, and for those that listened to me, that would be the case. Now they act as though the 2 Paracetamol they give you is coming from their own pocket! IF my bowel were too strangulate, I'm sort of hoping it will do it during the strike so that at least, it will be a consultant who sees me! Mind you, whether or not there'll be enough staff to operate on it is a different matter entirely ..... scary times for me.

Apparently when intending doctors are interviewed few ask about compassion, rather more about exam results and prowess on the sports field. My 'training to be doctors' grandchildren are in it for status and money which is a sad thing to report. Perhaps they'll change in time. And yes, I remember in the days before the NHS when to be a doctor was a vocation, often father to son. And people were seldom turned away but charged what they could reasonably afford (that according to my mother).
Doctors had surgeries morning and evening and visited their very sick patients in the afternoons.
My awakening came in 1968 when I had 2 sick infants covered in spots and the doctor said wrap them in a blanket and bring them over the road - pretty difficult with 2! Okay, it wasn't too bad and was only Roseola (or something) and they quickly recovered but it was a lesson to me in false expectations.

She may be on the GP retention scheme
"The GP retention scheme is a package of support for GPs considering leaving the profession – and for the practices employing them – to help them remain in clinical practice, providing one to four sessions per week."

mumofmadboys

Oldbat1 - you say your neighbours 3 children are part time GPs. Full time General Practice is a killer! It is exhausting and draining. Men sometimes manage it because they have wives to support them. Most GPs need at least one day off in the week to catch up with sleep, home or paperwork. I was a part time GP for many years. I couldn't have survived full time

My friends daughter is a part-time GP, partner. Apparently (and I have no idea how this is possible really, nor have I reason to dispute what my friend is telling me) she earns £17,000 a year!

ronib

If gps are covering in A&E for £200 an hour, who is covering for the gps?

Nobody I expect! Causing even more people to attend A&E because they cannot get an appointment with their GP!

To add to my last post, thank you also Yammy, Glorianny, and DaisyAnne for your support of our medics.
In a way, it’s too late for me. My doctor daughter upped and left for New Zealand nearly two years ago, of course taking our beloved grandchildren with her. We’re lucky in that we can afford to go to see her, but it’s a long, tedious, and very tiring journey. We spent two months out there over the winter, doing childcare whilst she worked and helping with other things. Being with the children almost every day was wonderful and heartbreaking when my little granddaughter clung to me and broke her little heart on the day we left. Her nine year old twin hid in our (rental) car and said he was a stowaway and returning to England with us. Their five year old brother cried and said he’s my grandad and I want to see him every day.
They might not have gone if her working conditions were better. It was her husband who wanted to go and was able to persuade her due to the strain they were working under in the NHS.
Thank you to the government for making their working conditions so poor.

What do the people, who blame the professionals currently providing NHS health care think will happen if those professionals decide to withdraw their labour completely by going to work privately or move abroad where conditions and pay are better?

Please could one of those repeating the Daily Mail style "facts" while having no actual knowledge tell me what they will do when there is no NHS as we have known it?

Don't come out with the "fact" (no knowledge required) that we cannot afford it. We could "afford" the fraud at the height of the pandemic. To be reasonable, some of that was inevitable in an emergency, but much of it certainly was not.

This happened while our current "I'm the safe pair of hands" PM was directly in charge of our money. Billions of pounds of "our" money disappeared into tax havens. Millions of pounds went to "friends" of the government who had no idea how to provide PPI, etc. No one has looked back and learned from this. But we are still told we cannot afford our NHS.

If this government tried to recover the fraud, the Conservative bookkeeping mind might feel we could "afford" the NHS. Why haven't they done that? Is it because some people will be found to be closely connected with this government? Why do the government pay for the chasing of tiny benefit overpayments while letting these vastly bigger sums go on a whim?

What sort of money are we talking about. In the tax year 2020-2021, between £33.2 billion and £58.8 billion was defrauded from the public purse. If we take it as, say £44 billion (nicely in the middle), this is 7.5% of all the taxes raised, in that year, effectively going to rich criminals. You may ask if £44 billion is a lot. In the same Covid year, the only departments spending more were Health and Social Care (which must feel like a joke to some) and education (another of the governments underfunded "jokes").

Also, under Sunak as Chancellor, the government wasted £37 billion on the private system of Track and Trace. We needed a Track and Trace system, but the one put in place - not by the NHS - was found, by the parliamentary investigation, to have been entirely wasted. We were no better off than if we hadn't had the system at all.

So if you add these together, Rishi Sunak, as Chancellor, lost more money than Liz Truss did with her crazy budget. This is not the entire amount of waste, but surely people can see that we can afford the NHS.

What we can't afford is a Conservative Government.

Yammy

maddyone

The entitlement thing is plain weird Maddy…..

I know Sue but I guess it is what it is.

The complaints about doctors on this thread make me ashamed. Some of the entitlement is visible here. The comments that doctors shouldn’t strike, are paid enough, should be made to work in the NHS for two years (they do already) a lack of understanding/ignorance about training and service and qualifications and working conditions etc. Too many people who don’t actually give a toss so long as the doctors are there when they want them to be. Total disinterest in the reasons these strikes have arisen. It’s all here on Gransnet.

Thank you to those who do understand and thankfully there are many of these too. Maizie, Wyllow, SueDonim, Foxie, Iam64, and others too many to name, just thank you for understanding the situation in all it’s complexity.

I understand Maddyone my husband is a retired medic and empathises with them as do I.
Last night we were doing our family finances and realised our repair man charges £80 per hour to service the central heating boiler and AGA. Maybe we are paying over the odds. I bet he started his apprenticeship at 16 on a poor salary yes.
Not at 24 after 5 + years at uni plus two in hospital until they still only gain a BA,BSC and have to study at night and weekends to get their M.D. To be truly a DR. Until you live with them you have no understanding.
My only grumble would be they could be a bit more decorous in their protesting they are not helping themselves by being displayed on TV> as a rowdy rabble, not the professionals they are.

Yammy your boilerman may have done a short (6 months I think) course to register as a gas fitter. He can still charge that much. He'll be self employed so will have costs to take off, but he'll be earning more than a lot of doctors.

maddyone

^The entitlement thing is plain weird Maddy…..^

I know Sue but I guess it is what it is.

The complaints about doctors on this thread make me ashamed. Some of the entitlement is visible here. The comments that doctors shouldn’t strike, are paid enough, should be made to work in the NHS for two years (they do already) a lack of understanding/ignorance about training and service and qualifications and working conditions etc. Too many people who don’t actually give a toss so long as the doctors are there when they want them to be. Total disinterest in the reasons these strikes have arisen. It’s all here on Gransnet.

Thank you to those who do understand and thankfully there are many of these too. Maizie, Wyllow, SueDonim, Foxie, Iam64, and others too many to name, just thank you for understanding the situation in all it’s complexity.

I understand Maddyone my husband is a retired medic and empathises with them as do I.
Last night we were doing our family finances and realised our repair man charges £80 per hour to service the central heating boiler and AGA. Maybe we are paying over the odds. I bet he started his apprenticeship at 16 on a poor salary yes.
Not at 24 after 5 + years at uni plus two in hospital until they still only gain a BA,BSC and have to study at night and weekends to get their M.D. To be truly a DR. Until you live with them you have no understanding.
My only grumble would be they could be a bit more decorous in their protesting they are not helping themselves by being displayed on TV> as a rowdy rabble, not the professionals they are.

ronib

Sue Donim any idea how many nurses were working alongside your daughter and one other medic on the night shift covering 250 patients?

Thank you for answering this question, Casdon. Yes, two nursing staff. It also needs to be remembered that these may well be agency staff who have never worked on a particular ward before so don’t know their patients or where things are kept or paperwork procedures. There is a registrar-level doctor somewhere in the building and consultants are available on the phone but a doctor would be near death themselves before daring to call a consultant at 3am.

The shifts for junior doctors are a constant succession of bleeps and in a large hospital, patients can be scattered over many wards and floors, so there’s a lot of to-ing and fro-ing. You may have a patient with severe pain, a crash call, a patient who keeps pulling their line out, someone trying to discharge themselves, someone is developing sepsis, deaths to be certified and much, much more.

My dd took her own food in for her break but mostly only got to eat it when she arrived home after 13 hours. She avoided drinks as much as possible because there wasn’t time to go to the toilet. She lost 20lbs in a few months - and there wasn’t much of her to begin with so she’s now a size 6.

This BBC article also highlights some of the problems. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-65167520

volver3

Oh, apparently he is real...

In his writing, Daniels frequently argues that the leftist views prevalent within Western intellectual circles minimise the responsibility of individuals for their own actions and undermine traditional mores, contributing to the formation within prosperous countries of an underclass afflicted by endemic violence, criminality, sexually transmitted diseases, welfare dependency, and drug abuse.

Well, I think we know where his politics lies. He has more pseudonyms that Grant Shapps.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Dalrymple

I don't need to read it, then...

Primrose53

ruthiek

My doctor had give part time 3 morning work only , because he told everyone he wanted a family life, but what he failed to say was the other days he was actually working in his private acupuncture clinic . Wouldn’t everyone like to have 32% pay increase ? I am saddened that it’s not a vocation anymore Just a job

Same here ruthiek

Our GP practice has about 12 doctors most of whom have gone part time. Two of them have set up a private clinic in the town doing minor cosmetic surgery. They have the cheek to leave their brochures in the reception area of our NHS surgery. Another one does private acupuncture clinic.

You ring our surgery and you can’t get an appt for at least 2 weeks because they are either “on annual leave” or fully booked, well they would be since they are only doing half a week. That doesn’t help patients at all.

Has it occurred to you why GPs are working part time in general practice and doing other work too Primrose53?

Yes foxie she is a credit to herself, but also to you.

You’re right, most complainers wouldn’t last a week if they had to do the job of any junior doctor. I take comfort from the fact they don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.

ruthiek

My doctor had give part time 3 morning work only , because he told everyone he wanted a family life, but what he failed to say was the other days he was actually working in his private acupuncture clinic . Wouldn’t everyone like to have 32% pay increase ? I am saddened that it’s not a vocation anymore Just a job

Same here ruthiek

Our GP practice has about 12 doctors most of whom have gone part time. Two of them have set up a private clinic in the town doing minor cosmetic surgery. They have the cheek to leave their brochures in the reception area of our NHS surgery. Another one does private acupuncture clinic.

You ring our surgery and you can’t get an appt for at least 2 weeks because they are either “on annual leave” or fully booked, well they would be since they are only doing half a week. That doesn’t help patients at all.

Oh, apparently he is real...

In his writing, Daniels frequently argues that the leftist views prevalent within Western intellectual circles minimise the responsibility of individuals for their own actions and undermine traditional mores, contributing to the formation within prosperous countries of an underclass afflicted by endemic violence, criminality, sexually transmitted diseases, welfare dependency, and drug abuse.

Well, I think we know where his politics lies. He has more pseudonyms that Grant Shapps.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Dalrymple

MayBee70

It’s actually misleading to call them junior doctors. It makes them sound like wet behind the ears 16 year olds whereas they are actually the people that we depend upon to save our lives. I haven’t looked into it but it wouldn’t surprise me if lorry drivers aren’t allowed to work the long hours that doctors have to.

Your wish is my command

wiki

"To summarise if you have a 17 week reference period a HGV driver must not exceed an average working week of 48 hours over this time. A driver, however can work up to 60 hours in a single week as long as it all averages out to 48 hours or less over the 17 week period.

The Mail at its very best.

Quoting a person who isn't real.

Never giving another POV. Like a genuine interview with a Junior doctor one strike as the to the why's.

Like not taking into account the quite long term dire shortage of doctors and nurses etc that affects us all.

It’s actually misleading to call them junior doctors. It makes them sound like wet behind the ears 16 year olds whereas they are actually the people that we depend upon to save our lives. I haven’t looked into it but it wouldn’t surprise me if lorry drivers aren’t allowed to work the long hours that doctors have to.

Theodore Dalrymple is a pseudonym of a retired prison doctor and psychiatrist

I'm saying nothing.

They have revealed greed and irresponsibility:as the Nhs is hit by a 96 hour strike by junior doctors.
Theodore D
Daily Mail 11/April

Foxie48 thought to mention stents do not always work.. not that simple.

mayisay

I read a very interesting article in the Daily Mail yesterday by Theodore Dalrymple, which is well worth taking a few minutes to read for an alternative view to the majority of opinions on GN.

If you'd like to give us a link to it, or it's title (so that it's easily searchable) I'm happy to read it.

maddyone

Well done to your daughter foxie. She is a credit to you. Thank you for explaining the complexity of ^junior doctors.^

Nah, she's a credit to herself! However, I wonder how many people on here might have a heart attack and need a stent in their heart as a matter of emergency. I think they would expect to be treated by properly trained doctors and nurses in a clean theatre with an intensive care bed available to them for their recovery with suitably trained nurses and doctors to manage their recovery. As it is ATM in many hospitals none of this is guaranteed. We must find a way of retaining trained nurses and doctors, currently too many are voting with their feet. 25% of consultant anaesthetists are planning to retire in the next 5 years and there is already a shortage which affects the ability to train more junior anaesthetists. In 2020 over 500 junior anaesthetists failed to find a part 2 training post so marked time. It's crazy and the general public actually have little idea what it's like being a junior doctor and tbh wouldn't survive a week if they had to do the job.

Many of these junior doctors will leave the UK and go where they are respected and paid better... its already happening. The UK has trained them and other counties will benefit. We will be left with fewer doctors.

I don't blame the doctors at all.