Struggling to make ends meet as a junior doctor. AIBU?

[HK3444]

Struggling to make ends meet. Rent has gone up, food bills are going up and struggling to support my kids.

I’m someone worked really hard through medical school, it felt like endless exams and accumulated student debt with the hope that I’d be able to support my family comfortably at the end of the degree and but also feel job satisfaction bettering the health of others.

Not sure what this was all for… can’t believe I’m in this situation as a doctor

The biggest risk to our health is ourselves. 6.1 billion NHS cost dur to obesity alone. Of course, everyone has an excuse for why they are obese. It remains that it's mainly our failure to adopt a healthy living that is putting so much pressure on the NHS.

Take that pressure away and we don't need as many doctors. Or those doctors have more time and energy to support junior doctors instead of finding themselves so stretched that junior doctors are left undertaking consultant tasks without the expertise and all the stress that goes with it.

It's obvious from this thread that many he ave absolutely no clue as to what being a junior doctor entails. Very few would have even a iota of the resilience that it requires.

Blaming them for people dying is quite ironic when we can't even help ourselves in the first place and therefore end up so reliant on those ungrateful and arrogant doctors!

And here's a testimony from the trenches of your revered Australian healthcare system:

My husband is a Junior Doctor so have some serious skin in the game. The figures banded about by some, eg, £14ph etc are based on the lowest paid rotations without shift allowances, on call etc. It is still too low but don't be fooled.

The problem is that salaries have not really increased since 2008, so the 35% figure is based on restoration rather than a straight increase. I think 35% in the current climate is unrealistic and unreasonable but the principle of restoration over time is fair.

The problem is that people just don't realise the difficulties as a JD. DH changed hospitals every 6 months, commuting up to an hour and a half each way after 48 hour on calls. We have moved twice to opposite ends of the country despite having a 6 month old, couldn't sell the house and ended up with rent, mortgage plus childcare costs. If both partners are JD, god help them with the points based training interviews. They are fair game to be contacted on holiday and even in the middle of the night when off duty. He has been subject to a complaint because a patient had their jeans ruined when cutting them off to access an open fracture and the hospital management asked him to apologise!

He doesn't get a laptop despite his job needing one, he doesn't get a work phone, he doesn't get a car allowance, he pays for mandatory courses himself. He works 70 hour weeks then the laptop is open when he gets home.

After medical school and 13 years of this, £70 odd k for doing 1 in 4 48 hour weekends on call and 24h on calls every other week doesn't so great to be honest!!

My take is the how to pay one - given the realities of aging population and staff increases. You’ve already said you don’t know how. That doesn’t make the question or issue just dissolve, it’s still there

I’ve posted Aus model below, they seem ok with it

We do have health insurance btw as do they, just at higher rates

They look at reducing the state burden rather than more people paying in overall as a huge evil

We are stuck on that politically

We can’t just say we have to pay loads more but no idea how. There really does need to be a how

Maybe the aging population issue is hitting there too

It still doesn’t mean you can give any viable solution

You, and Labour, will need it

Just shouting from the sidelines you’re all getting it wrong won’t cut it

What is nuts is continuing to tell people they should be ‘grateful’ for a sub standard, second class positively harmful health service that costs the earth and is accountable to nobody.

The doctors working there holding the place to ransom. The reminders that unless we give into their blackmail they need not come back.

I for one have had enough of pouring billions into a service that is not even functioning at the most basic level for anyone. We pay eye watering taxes for what exactly??

This is what I was talking about. You're directing your ire at the wrong people. The doctors are not the cause of the 'death and pain' here but a series of incompetent, hapless, cruel governments over the past 14 years who have deliberately underinvested in the NHS, using patients as 'human fodder' while throwing money at lucrative PPE contracts to their mates etc.

This post is so great because it demonstrates

1. it’s not all about pay it’s about conditions
2. There needs to be an overhaul of the pay scale so the experienced “junior “ doctors get fairer compensation

If we treat people fairly they will stay

Do you really, honestly think that privatising the health service would result in improved care? If we adopted the private health insurance what about those who can't afford it? Or do we just not think about them, as long as you're OK?

And you DO NOT pay eye watering taxes, taxation is pretty low in this country.

I disagree - it’s the JD demanding 35% if they came to the table for 15-18% this would all be over by now. You can’t negotiate with terrorist unions that has no real intention of settling a real dispute, they only want to create as much noise and destruction as possible. So what if people die in the process?

Such little regard for human life is what I am witnessing from JD and their unions, determined efforts to maximise death and suffering. I am beyond appalled.

The government is refusing to come to the table, not the JDs. The Scottish government came to the table, and the very same JDC settled with them at 11%.

Why won’t the English government negotiate? The strikes would be over tomorrow if they agreed to meet the BMA.

We certainly know your type! Happy to tax people 90% because you have never done a days work in your life.

The NHS is sinking faster than the titanic. The red flares in the sky. The doctors in the life rafts. The patients are the ones in real trouble. It no longer works. At all.

"terrorist unions"

Right, I see you're not worth bothering with.

@greensleevez I’d keep the NHS but still ask what level of the population also paying into private makes sense

It’s a way to draw more disposable income from the public on top of NI. Are you are a Labour supporter? Because you may have missed Streeting travelling to Aus directly to assess their model

I also agree with pp we are too unhealthy overall, obesity is higher than many comparative countries, but definitely not easy to fix

Maybe because it’s 35% with no realistic chance of settlement??

Where?

Genuinely asking because from what I've read a lot or countries are in similar situation as the UK, at least when it comes to salaries and worked hours for nurses and junior doctors.
I'm obviously excluding countries that rely primarily on a private health system.

👋🏻

It's not the JD fault that the NHS is "substandard". They aren't in charge of the funding or management of the NHS. As for "eye watering taxes" to pay for it, we actually pay a lot less than countries with a better health service. If there was no tax payer health service you would probably be paying insurance as in the US and I doubt it would be cheaper.

15 to 18% ?

The Govt has offered 3% for 2023/24 & has publicly said they will not improve this offer or look at longer term pay restoration..... they'd still be strikes.

Govt negotiated with criminal layers during strikes AND gave them a 15% pay rise.

Takes two to tango and if you were being even handed, you'd say both sides need to compromise.

Why isn't the Govt willing to negotiate right now?

Parking is definitely not free in any hospital for Doctors or any staff for that matter. Also for doctors who work un-sociable hours they sometimes require a nanny to cover childcare if their spouse is also a doctor or works unsociable hours.

Or maybe because it is very useful for Rishi Sunak to pretend the collapsing NHS and astronomical waiting lists are entirely due to a couple of junior doctors out on strike, and nothing to do with their years of underinvestment and mismanagement. So Rishi hasn’t met any of his pledges, but he has a convenient scapegoat in the BMA.

The Scottish government negotiated with the same BMA, making the same demands, and came to an agreement at 11%. The English government refuses to meet them. Ask yourself why that is, if they are genuinely desperate to end the strikes.

Why are posters continuing to engage with total idiocy? I suggest ignore and move the thread back to an intelligent platform.

The ‘care’ we received in hospital was so poor, I think I would rather take my chances or die than endure it again. All of the medics I know have private healthcare.

The nhs is not fit for purpose. It’s been exploited for years worldwide. I remember when people used to fly in for free hip replacements and other costly operations. It can’t serve the needs of 70 million people cradle to grave. It’s mathematically an impossible feat with an ageing population.

One cause of JD shortage is all these lady doctors going off on maternity leave it shouldn't be allowed (didn't someone up thread say JD shouldn't be allowed to strike)

They will be treated by the medics who also work in the NHS. The difference is that private hospitals charge more and pay medics more for their work.