Looks like a junior doctors strike is coming. Reasonable or unreasonable?

[Erica56]

www.bma.org.uk/pay-and-contracts/pay/junior-doctors-pay-scales/fair-pay-for-junior-doctors-in-england

1. Because nothing is being done to address it at the moment. A bursary for a few thousand for some healthcare students, big whoop.

1. It isn't morally wrong to strike, that's emotional blackmail to stop people fighting for their worth. Harm is being done to patients from the haemoraghing of staff as you'll well know as a nurse. This ideology is what has eroded pay and conditions to this point.

1. That's the point, at some point someone has to step in and listen. All JDs I know would support strikes from nurses and other healthcare staff so to expect support for theirs isn't wild.

1. Its already disrupted due to short staffing, savage conditions and government short cuts taking their opportunities.

the majority of issues faced by healthcare staff currently are due to low staffing which takes years to solve, not sure how a strike will fix this

Higher pay will help with retainment and recruitment, i hope my DD strikes.

it is morally wrong to strike as a healthcare provider. Doctors specifically take an oath to 'do no harm', and I can confidently say that harm will be done in their absence

Thats on the Govt, why blame Doctors only?

the burden on other staff (nurses, nurse practitioners, secretaries, advanced clinical practitioners etc.) in their absence will be unimaginable

with so many staff leaving, thats happening already

medical students on placement will have their education severely disrupted

With no one to mentor them, they'll get sub standard training anyway.

They deserve better pay and working conditions but I do not believe that a strike is the best way to achieve this

err how? they've exhausted ALL other methods, as have ALL healthcare staff and still the Govt runs down the NHS.

e.g £5bn given to 45% tax payers (wont even notice) would give junior dr's a huge pay rise... political choices.

Completely reasonable and actually overdue

Doctors do not take an oath.. Its a well loved mumsnet myth.
We do not stand up at graduation and swear the hipocratic oath... Sorry to disappoint you.
We are bound by the GMC guidance that is called Good Medical practice.

@Spudina I think you meant to tag someone else? My post never mentioned junior doctors and I know exactly what they are, and they have my full support 🤔

@TheNinny apologies.

Strikes are always reasonable. Nobody owes anyone their labour. Ever.

@strawberrysea

Not sure if this has been said elsewhere: Just to point out that care on e.g. the wards, A&E, will be BETTER on strike days. Why? Consultants! They will come and cover the gaps junior doctors leave.

Now this will still mean patient harm in a couple ways: further impact on elective work (so operations cancelled, waiting lists even higher), and financially: likely hospitals will have to spend more money to ensure staffing is in place, which will probably have some impact down the road. But if you think hospital wards will just suddenly be devoid of doctors, you'd be wrong.

Others have already said but obviously the idea is to strike so that pay and conditions are improved so we can get more staff, and an oath about doing no harm would be so stupid and doesn't exist. Imagine: you'd never be able to perform an operation as cutting the patient is causing harm... 'oh, but its for the greater good'. Yes, like the strikes.

I support Junior Doctors striking.

Every one here supporting them until they have to take their kid or grandmother to A&E on a weekend and basically get sent home.

Sick and injured people don’t stop getting sick or injured. I don’t know what the solution is but not turning up for work when people who have nothing to do it REALLY need them is not on

@Hugocat1 the government aren't listening so there is no other choice. Obviously it shouldn't have to come to strike action but there you go. The current way of things is awful. Striking is the lesser of 2 evils to achieve a result. I support any strike action fully.

@Hugocat1 our hospital has declared a critical incident due to the amount of patients waiting in ED for beds. One day recently there were 270 patients waiting for beds. We have started calling the corridors around A@E “corridor ward 1, 2 etc” and just this week a patient nearly died in one. The worst scenario you describe, is already here. It cannot get worse. In the event of a strike it’s all hands on deck. We have done it before and will do it again. But something has to change.

Totally reasonable.

Personally I support them in striking because the government has failed to listen. Its failed to react to the fact that the NHS and the staff are on their absolute knees. There is no give left in the system, no fall backs, no oh it's stressful but we will manage; it's literally not far from collapsing and I think non medical people would be shocked if they knew what was happening. The whole point is that yes people need care and we need healthcare professionals in place to deliver that care. Without extreme action, ie striking, people will just continue to leave in their thousands and that won't be possible. During a strike the gaps will be covered for emergency care, when staff numbers fall too low though there won't be anyone to fill the gaps.

Not at all.

It is not fair that junior doctor's shoulder the huge responsibility of trying to prop up a failing health care system, all whilst being treated like shit and not being paid enough. How dare you put that on them? They are human beings with rights. That doesn't stop being true just because they chose a profession which involves caring for sick people.

Then these people need to get behind the staff; the doctors, nurses, AHPs, midwives, paramedics etc, and support us instead of slagging us off on MN when we've told everyone over and over that the NHS is collapsing but they're still expecting 100% A* care.
Countless times on here I've read that the NHS is shit, not worth it, care not good enough. Well, fight for it then? Strike action is our last resort, no one takes it lightly, but healthcare professionals have been telling the public for a decade that the Tory government are trying to dismantle the NHS and nobody listened. Maybe people will listen now.
Besides that, emergency care is fully staffed when strikes are ongoing. If you're receiving substandard care in A&E during the strikes you'll have been receiving substandard care before them too. They can't just pull staff out of the air.

If you are on Twitter and support the JD strike, please like and share.

twitter.com/BMA_JuniorDocs/status/1576262937777274880?s=20&t=qFWZNs1R_FWiLMvvkPeZIQ

JDC today voted to enter trade dispute on behalf of junior doctors in England with the Government over pay, recognising anger felt at years of damaging pay cuts, chronic staff shortages and persistent underfunding.

A ballot for industrial action is planned for around January 9.

Our UK junior doctors committee met yesterday and decided #EnoughIsEnough - we support

twitter.com/BMA_JuniorDocs/status/1576535514789777409?s=20&t=A79eCRM9n8RGdetXbELUmw

Our UK junior doctors committee met yesterday and decided EnoughIsEnough - we support.

Well said!!

I'm not a doctor but I fully support strike action for those who want to take part, and for those in other jobs-nurses, teachers, shop workers who ever.
I recently quit my job in community pharmacy a dispenser as the workload increase and demands on our services was getting dangerous and the pay was just crap for the stress of the job.

I remember during covid when it all started kicking off, barely able to source PPE. I mentioned it to a friend who said well you can just make your own, its not like you're the real NHS, despite being one of the only walk in services still functioning face to face.

My job has been belittled for years, I battled on for our elderly patients because I always felt so guilty about leaving and things falling apart. But I finally made the jump a few weeks ago, for an admin job where I get christmas holidays off, no weekends and decent pay.

Welp, would you rather them strike and withhold their labour with the option of keeping working if contracts are renegotiated or go to the private sector and be lost to the NHS forever?

Actually, Hugocat, I'm supporting them because I know very well how long I would be waiting if I were to take a relative to ED. The fact that we'd get seen at all is a miracle at the moment and I know that it's ñot really a miracle but being held up by doctors (of all levels), nurses, HCAs and everyone else. Too many of them end several shifts a week in tears and need to quit for their own wellbeing. So if a strike is what it takes for that to be heard, bring on the strikes.

As an aside, I’m glad it’s been pointed out that doctors don’t take some ‘do no harm’ oath!
Perhaps Strawberrysea learned his/her facts via Dr Drake Ramoray from Days of our Lives ( layers of fiction) 🤣

Theredjellybean and Lapland123
My dd1 is a junior doctor... been a doc for 7 years now and she certainly DID take the Hippocratic Oath at her graduation ceremony...along with the rest of her cohort.
Maybe not all med schools do, but hers certainly did... I was there and it was actually very moving!

Dh certainly did, he had to sign it! The whole thing was part of graduation from medical school.

They take the oath. Fact.

www.ucl.ac.uk/~zcapg66/work/LongEssay.pdf