Well all the nhs problems are down to women apparently

[louloutheshamed]

Dm link coming up....

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2532461/Why-having-women-doctors-hurting-NHS-A-provovcative-powerful-argument-leading-surgeon.html

Especially those pesky intelligent women who train for years at the taxpayers expense and then become gps, have children and go part time.

What gives me rage about this is the way it is presented ther women have children by some form of immaculate conception or that asexual reproduction that plants do, not that women have children with men who actually need to step up to their child care responsibilities so that 'woman going part time after children' is not the default automatic option.

My dh would agree with this at the moment sadly. Up until last year he would have stood up for female doctors but he has had an 18 month nightmare at work.

The hospital department he works in has 2 consultants, dh and a female consultant. She went on mat leave 18 months ago and gave dated to hr that she would return to work when her baby was 4 months old, when the baby was 3 months old she decided to extend her leave to 6 months.

Unfortunately the locum couldn't do an extra two months so dh had to cover both jobs with patchy cover here and there. When her baby was 6 months old she decided she was staying off for a year.

They managed to get some locum cover but not the full time that was needed. When her baby was 10 months old the female consultant handed in her notice and was going for another job. She never came back to work as with the remaining 2 months ml plus holiday she had it pretty much used up all her notice period.

Interviewing began for a new consultant, needed to start ASAP. Waiting lists were getting longer at this point because dh was on his own for most of the last year.

A new consultant was appointed Obviously there was a further 3 month delay due to her notice period and with the job advert having to be open 4 weeks then time for interview it has dragged on for about 5 months.

Dh was so relieved when his colleague started work 3 weeks ago, as was I as he has been finishing work late while all this has been going in. She announced on Christmas Eve that she was 6.5 months pregnant. She plans to take 6
Months leave.

If I'm truly honest I'm hoping that all his future colleagues have finished with their baby years as dh and our family are suffering.

Urgh. That is an utterly disgusting attitude for someone in his position to have.

I'm a female consultant and have been amazed and depressed at how backward medicine is.
I don't know a single male consultant colleague who has chosen to go part time even where the female partner is also a consultant - either they've both continued or the woman has gone part time. None of the men seem to consider it their role too.

I was constantly advised not to do surgery by male colleagues as it wasn't suitable for women and incompatible with having children. It contributed to the reason i chose my current specialty in the end. A surgical registrar colleague gave up in the end after being told by her college tutor she could never combine it with having children.

I wonder if it would be viable to report him to the gmc for that article? It would seem to be an incompatible view with GMC good practice. I may look into it.

I am also confused as to when this continuity of care with GPs was, and where.

Was it one GPs practice in a small village in Devon in 1968?

Thinking about it my dentist is also a woman who works part-time. She runs a single handed practice which is open 2.5 days a week. She is very good and very nice.

Next time I see her I will remember to mention that she is RUINING SOCIETY and maybe kick her just, you know, because.

Don't kick her NiceTabard just make sure she is post menopausal or barren in some way to ensure that she doesn't drain the NHS and make her colleagues sad.

Lunar, not everyone knows how they'll feel once the baby is here so it's a good thing that women are allowed to change their minds.

And the issue with leave for a new baby would not be a gendered issue if men would share parental leave. But they don't generally so it's left to women to get on with it.

And quite why ONE woman's maternity leave should influence his views on female doctors is beyond me. The problem was with his employers not making the contingency plans needed not with the woman for taking the leave she was entitled to take.

The "problem" is not confined to medicine. The vast majority of jobs require a certain amount of education, and complaints about women having babies and taking maternity leave are across all sectors.

So the logical conclusion of this is that women should not be allowed to work, and should not be educated, unless they have their tubes tied before they reach fertility.

Personally I think there is bound to be a better solution.

redtoothbrush there will be no 'debt to society' now students pay for their courses!

People never seem to cotton onto the fact that PT work equals PT salary, and more PT workers means more people in employment!

Her kids are grown up chaos so I think it's safe.

Actually, she is self employed though, so maybe that makes it OK. No HOLD THE FRONT PAGE so are GPs!!!!!!

Should self employed people be allowed to work part time?

Hmmmm not sure

Should self employed women be allowed to work part-time to bring up children? HELL to the NO!

Should self-employed men be allowed to work part-time for whatever reason as it's up to them? HELL to the YES!

I think its wrong that women are being blamed for this.
My only objection tbh is having too many appointments cancelled because the nurse or doctor had to go home to their sick child.
My appointment is more important than a sick child who should be looked after by somebody else. Male or Female, I couldn't give a shit.
Rant over.

Maybe the men (and sadly women) with this attitude should move to the US, where there is no universal right to Mat leave, and, being doctors, they will be able to afford health insurance adequate to their needs, because there's no NHS either.

The whole attitude makes me unbearably sad, because the people who are saying this are also covered by the parental leave laws, but, because they find them so utterly distasteful, they obviously can't have taken advantage of them.

Well.
I too am so NOT clicking on that link, but depressingly get the drift of the 'article' by everybody else's comments.

I am one of those NHS-ruining part-time drs.
I have had 4, yes four, lots of mat leave (6 months each).
I have returned to the exact same job after each set of leave except that the actual hours I work have increased with a fall in pay (I am NOT complaining about pay btw).
My DH has also had 4 children in exactly the same time frame (amazingly enough). He was not allowed time off beyond 2 weeks pat leave.
His job hours have not changed except he has protected study leave, sick leave and regular admin time (none of which I enjoy).

I am a GP. He is a hospital dr.

None of my colleagues (male or female) work full-time: some of them have outside interests or 'portfolio' careers as are more and more common as full-time working in GPland is a sure path to burn-out.

lunar, your husband has been left carrying the can by v poor management and poor forward planning (which also involved his colleague. From what you are saying, she did not behave.... er, impeccably).

Surely the way forward is an acceptance by society (and the DM ) that raising children takes time and energy and commitment and somebody's got to do it.
So why not give "parental leave" that can be split equally between mothers and fathers as in many other countries? Why not engage fathers more in the life of their young children? There is nothing a man cannot do that a mother does apart from the actual pregnancy, delivery and BFing.

Gah.

Btw. I was trained in Germany. I am a total and utter net gain the NHS. So there, DM, have a pfffffft from me

My appointment is more important than a sick child who should be looked after by somebody else. Male or Female, I couldn't give a shit.
Rant over.

I disagree (but then I would, I suppose). No appointment is more important than a sick child, but you should be offered to see an alternative dr at your appointed time if somebody is unexpectedly unavailable.
What about drs falling sick, having sudden family bereavements, being involved in accidents?

Also, many full time GPs work such long hours on the days they work, that they work full time without working every day Monday-Friday. Quite a few ft GPs I know work four days, but long ones. Which may also impact on ability to get an appointment with that GP on a, say, Tuesday. Not because they are part time, but because they do evening and early morning clinics on other day.s

The first woman's mat leave didn't affect his judgment. He was the one on the interview panel who fought for the female consultant over 2 men. His vote tipped the balance because they will be working together directly.

I think he was just desperate to have a permanent colleague again and he will again be alone or with locum. I think he would be just as annoyed right now if a consultant had started male or female and then went off sick. Dh would still be in the wrong to be annoyed, he has just had a stressful time and thought it was about to improve.

I will just keep my fingers crossed that the trust manage more consistsnt cover this time.

Pacific

It should be managed better. Bloody teachers too.
But I guess you can't have emergency cover for everyone.
Perhaps we should all have fewer dc.
I am not anti parents at all, just the inconvenience of having important appointments cancelled.
I wasn't referring to the real emergencies, of course they happen.
But a child sent home from school, imo isn't the same thing.

Well that all sounds pretty reasonable morethan, apart from these days most people work.

Do schools etc need to change, to understand that many/most homes don't have someone handily on tap to nip around and pick up a child with a minor illness?

i think society has changed hugely and employers / schools etc need to catch up with that, rather than carry on pretending it's all nuclear families everywhere with a mum at home who can knock off washing tea towels and go and get the sprog. There need to be some fundamental changes.

At our school they still seem to work on the assumption that there is a mum type person at home, ready to be on call, make jam, volunteer at xyz , turn up at meetings with 2 mins notice etc. When I say "mum type person" I mean mum, obv.

If our society wants a parent to leave the workplace when a family has children then they need to make that affordable and not leave anyone in dire straits in the event of separation. And give men and women a fair crack at it. the current situation is unsustainable IMO.

Incidentally I haven't ever had a appt cancelled due to childcare stuff.

Things have been cancelled due to admin cock-ups (when I was pg, happened a lot, and they never told me in advance grr), or "unforeseen circumstances" or similar.

Thinking about it, when a teacher isn't there or an orthoptist, they don't go into detail why. I am surprised your GP surgery shares info that personal about the doctors. It wouldn't happen around here - may be a thing that differs between areas I guess.

Given DH and I are so busy with kids and work, we all just take an appointment with whichever GP is available at any time that is vaguely convenient.

The hardest GP in our practice to get an appointment with is male - because he's the practice owner, has been there the longest and has a particular speciality that means he's always booked out weeks ahead. Shall I go and kick him?

Lunar, the laws on mat leave are that it's assumed 12 months will be taken unless at least 8 weeks' notice is given of an alternative return date, and if that date changes subsequently, again, at least 8weeks' notice is required. It doesn't sound like that was adhered to by her or by HR.

Morethan, have you never had to leave work to pick up a sick child?

I think that just enough notice was given on each occasion apart from one extension which was a couple of days late. Hr were pretty useless though, and they couldn't really force her to come back anyway. I think the rules should have been that unless there is a dramatic change of circumstance you can only make one change to return date.

In a large speciality it wouldn't have mattered as much as there would be more staff to share the work load and more consultants generally that are available for locum work.

But it has to be based on the law regardless of speciality etc.

My understanding, though I'm not a lawyer or GR person, of why the notice of a change of date was changed from 4 weeks to 8 was that the presumption would be that maternity cover would be hired for a year, as that is the "default", and then 8 weeks' notice would enable reasonable "early" notice to be given to the maternity cover.

In practice, many employers don't hire maternity cover in this way of course.