AIBU Junior Doctors - be professional and get back to your duties NOW !

[Lanchester]

AIBU Junior Doctors - Act responsibly and get back to work NOW !
If you want to work less hours fair enough.
And in fact you probably should be campaigning for that - together with an extra year or two of training so that you can get the necessary practical experience.
BUT at the moment you seem to be in effect saying that you want to continue to work long hours and continue to get premium rates for doing so.
Its really about your pay !
Meanwhile patient care is being put very much second to your own financial interests.

[ParsnipSoup]

Junior doctors haven't said that they want to work less hours, they have said they don't want to work more hours for less pay. They have also said they don't want to work more hours and to be unsafe because of safeguards over maximum hours being removed.

I really wouldn't want to be treated by junior doctors working more hours, getting more tired and stretching themselves further. It's not fair and it's not safe.

[ParsnipSoup]

I also don't see the problem with highly educated professionals who have gone through years of training and have loads of responsibilities wanting to earn the same as their peers in different industries.

[MarmiteAndButter]

Junior doctors earn 23000 in their first year. I earnt that in my first job 15 years ago without anything like the responsibility, the training or the hours.
I would quite like the doctors who are saving lives to not be too tired to do their jobs, and would love to see them paid and treated properly.
Otherwise they will just go abroad.

[originalusernamefail]

Even if it was all about pay (which it isn't) I defy anyone to accept a 30% pay cut in real terms to work the same job they do now. Its about trying to force a service that is drowning in its current demand to extend itself without the quality of that service being diluted. NOBODY but NOBODY needs their in growing toenail/ flaky skin seeing to at midnight on a Sunday. Emergency services are 24/7 already, as they've always been.

[50yearsoflife]

YABVVVVVU

The JDs are trying to save your NHS. Your long term care is MUCH more at risk if this new contract goes through and many JDs leave the country or the profession, whether through burnout or not being able to afford childcare for antisocial hours at low pay, than it is by a day of planned operations being postponed. The JDs are not doing this out of laziness or greed - they will have to catch up on operating lists. No patient is being put at risk as consultants are covering, and emergency care is not being compromised. READ THE CONTRACT. The govt have lied and lied and lied about this all. There is already a 7 day emergency NHS and there is no call for a 7 day routine care NHS. This is about reducing pay that is already low for the cream of a generation with 5 or 6 of years of training and debt behind them. The average Junior Doctor is 29 and on £29,000. These are the A* pupils from school. Out of that they first have to pay for their own insurance, their own exams and their own hospital accommodation for when they are on shifts (even though they are no doubt also paying for their own usual accommodation) bringing down their pay at 29 to about £25,000 at an age where they want families and a reasonable quality of life. No other top graduate would put up with that. Despite being dedicated and long suffering, many will be forced to leave if their pay is further reduced (the new contract represents an overall 30% cut, albeit with protected pay in place for 3 years meaning that all current JDs will have their pay frozen for the next 3 years despite increasing seniority and inflation, followed by a drop in year 4). This will leave the NHS a dangerous place to be treated. How sad that will be. JDs who have fled to Canada or Australia will be lost to the Uk forever to be replaced by locums and foreign trained doctors who are not necessarily as clever or as educated. So, so, so incredible that journalists have not read the contract and have not reported this dispute with any rigour; instead they have reproduced government spin and weasel words.

[BarbarianMum]

I think if you accept that the death rate soars at weekends, then it is reasonable to ask why that is, and how it could be prevented. I think it is certainly true that many support services (laboratory services) and some diagnostic tests are unavailable at weekends, delaying diagnosis - which may or may not be critical depending on the problem.

Not sure the above is going to be sorted by the current proposals though. Equally not sure why you've posted here.

[adognamedboo]

so unreasonable. let my handy inforgraphic enlighten you...

[Thecatisatwat]

Yes, why is this in feminism chat?

[bigbuttons]

This is funny. I hadn't realised that junior doctors were feminist issue. The things you learn.

[MrsToddsShortcut]

Not that it's all about pay (it's also hugely about safe working practice but perhaps people don't think that's very important) but, can you give me a good reason why a JD (which covers all hospital doctors below Consultant grade, so Registrars too) who have studied for up to 10 years to do a complex job that SAVES LIVES shouldn't be paid a 'premium wage'?

[BippityBoppity]

The admissions on weekends fare worse, because generally there are no elective admissions - proportionally the people who are admitted on weekends are usually a lot sicker than during the week.

[RainOhJoyus]

YABU, the services provided by doctors today is the same level of cover as in a weekend day/bank holiday day or weekday night.

Doctors do not want to work the same hours for less pay.

Also all doctors and NHS staff actually want more doctors to work nights/weekends but that means less doctors during regular days. There just aren't enough staff/they can't work 150hours a week safely.

But they can leave and work in Australia with safe hours and no pay cut. Why would they stay with a quite substantial pay cut?

P.s. If the NHS was privatised doctors would get paid more and work less hours, but those evil money grabbing doctors all want to stay warning less for the NHS. This is for you not just them.

[angryangryyoungwoman]

What is your profession op?

[MovingOnUpMovingOnOut]

Yabu. You've also posted in the wrong place.

[50yearsoflife]

BarbarianMum; Death rate is highest on a Wednesday. I think the stat you refer to is that patients admitted on a weekend are more likely to die than those admitted during the week. This is for accepted reasons: during the week there are both routine and emergency admissions. At the weekend there are only emergency admissions. Those admitted as emergencies are on average sicker and less prepared for surgery than those admitted for pre-planned routine surgery. They therefore have a higher death rate. The emergency care they receive is JUST THE SAME at weekends as it is during the week. The JDs are there! The main improvement that could be done (will require funding) is to enable more tests (scans, blood tests etc) to be available at weekends. This is nothing to do with JD staffing but would involve other technicians working weekends which they currently don't.

In essence, WE HAVE A 7 day emergency NHS already. Actually, under the new contract, the JDs will not be working any more hours (says Jeremy Hunt) so it is NOTHING to do with a 7 day NHS and everything to do with the government abusing their position as a monopolistic employer which will rebound on all of us when JDs leave, never to return :-( You can't just magic other doctors out of thin air.

I slightly get why this is a feminist issue: the new contract will have a particular impact on women as it will give no credit for maternity leave or years spent in research (an option picked disproportionately by women as it has normal hours and so fits better with children for which women have disproprtionate responsibility.) Also, the majority of JDs are now, for the first time, women. Lo and behold it is the first time that a pay cut has been proposed for them.

[BoboChic]

YABU.

I have every sympathy with junior doctors and with teachers. Two professions that are being exploited ruthlessly by the government, as if somehow they were captives who cannot walk if their working conditions are too awful to bear.

[Pigwitch]

Yabu. You haven't a clue what you're talking about.

[BarbarianMum]

Thanks for the explanation 50years that makes perfect sense.

I also agree that this could be discussed as a feminist issue, it's just that the OP isn't framing it in those terms at all.

[Harverina]

I think yabu.

The responsibility they have is huge. I think the term "junior" is misleading and unhelpful and makes it sound as though unqualified trainees are demanding extra money when that is not the case at all.

When I see a doctor I don't want them to have been working 12 hours before I am seen by them. I want them to be clear headed and able to make sound clinical decisions - not for them to muddle through exhausted.

I have experienced first hand emergency weekend care when my daughter was seriously ill last year. Our Nhs is bloody wonderful. Most of the people who work for it are dedicated and hard working staff. We need to recognise that instead of driving our most talented and hard working doctors to other counties where they can have a better work life balance!!

[Lanchester]

This entire post WAS originally posted under the Feminist Issues section inadvertently.
BUT
at least half the patients that David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt are fighting for are FEMALE...

so why would reduced service levels at the weekend NOT be a feminist issue?

AND anyway surely any feminist worth the name should be fighting for the rights of ALL vulnerable people in society EQUALLY ?

Women are as important as men but not more important.
Men are as important as women but not more important.

Lets have proper 1st world

7 day NHS care for ALL patients !

JEREMY HUNT is fighting for the patients.

The BMA are pretending that their main concern is for patients.
But they are not making much of an effort to reduce their paid hours,
and their main concern is for their pay differentials.

JEREMY HUNT is trying to bring the unrealistic financial expectations of the medical profession back down from the stratosphere.

Many NHS doctors seem to be able to afford to retire early.
Presumably they have managed to save enough to enable them to do so.

UK taxpayers (of whom doctors are only a small proportion, but receive 100% of the subsidy) have already generously subsidised NHS doctors' training, and gives them great training and opportunities, and a very generous index linked pension scheme.

Society does not owe the doctors any more money.
Most taxpayers are much poorer than the doctors they pay for.

Support the efforts of Jeremy Hunt to get a proper 7 day NHS for patients.

[Theodolia]

JEREMY HUNT is fighting for the patients.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha

Jeremy hunt couldn't give a flying fuck about patient care

[MovingOnUpMovingOnOut]

Seriously? You think because 50% of patients are female this is a feminist issue?

You can piss off with your "you're doing feminism wrong" schtick too.

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

Oh it's you again.
YABU.

[BarbarianMum]

Are you, in fact, Jeremy Hunt? You certainly have his debating style just shout louder til you drown out the opposition whilst refusing to actually engage in debate down to a T.

[Sirzy]

My son has been treated by an exhausted junior doctor getting towards the end of a rediculous length shift - he nearly missed a problem that could have killed him.

The current working conditions for junior doctors pose a much bigger risk to patient safety than when you are admitted does.

My son has been at hospital today for an ongoing treatment which has to happen at a certain time and even with the strikes that happened. Because the NHS make sure it does!

I fully support the junior doctors, they do a fantastic job and have lives in their hands so they need safe and fair working conditions not just for themselves but for the safety of everyone.