We junior doctors are not protesting only about pay

I was disappointed the News Letter's two recent articles about the junior doctor contract dispute and recent strikes in England (Editorial April 27 '˜Hunt is right to stand by the new contracts for junior doctors' Sandra Chapman April 30 '˜Ulster doctor tries to knock sense into striking colleagues').
By The Newsroom
Published 2nd May 2016, 15:51 BST
Updated 2nd May 2016, 17:39 BST
Protesters outside St Thomas' Hospital in London last week, as thousands of junior doctors striked. Photo: Philip Toscano/PA WireProtesters outside St Thomas' Hospital in London last week, as thousands of junior doctors striked. Photo: Philip Toscano/PA Wire
Protesters outside St Thomas' Hospital in London last week, as thousands of junior doctors striked. Photo: Philip Toscano/PA Wire

Neither author would appear to have taken the time to understand the issues at the heart of the dispute.

Despite what the Secretary of State for Health would have us believe, the strikes were not primarily about pay. Speaking personally, I feel it is a tremendous privilege to do the job I do; one which I recognise is also relatively well paid. The real issues at stake are working conditions and the safety of patients.

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As junior doctors (any doctor up to consultant level) we work in a system which is already stretched almost to breaking point in hospitals across the UK. There are numerous ‘rota gaps’ – unfilled posts which leave out-of-hours shifts uncovered, and on top of the many weekends and nightshifts we already work we are often asked (or obliged) to stay on late or work extra shifts.

By promising more doctors on at weekends without employing any extra doctors, inevitably the proposed new arrangements will have to spread the existing staff even more thinly, or will force them to work much longer hours. Despite the contention that doctors under the new contract would somehow work fewer hours, it’s obvious that this simply doesn’t add up. In actual fact the existing safeguards against excessive working hours would be replaced with a watered-down alternative lacking any real teeth.

It’s also worth pointing out that the Department of Health’s own equality impact assessment acknowledges that its new contract would impact disproportionately on women.

Under the new contract we as junior doctors foresee a future in which our already precarious work-life balance would be decimated, and even more importantly, we would be pushed to levels of over-work and fatigue under which we could no longer guarantee the safety of the patients under our care.

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I would also like to take the opportunity to point out that Dr Dalby, while he is entitled to his personal view, is by no means representative of the vast majority of junior doctors in Northern Ireland. Many signed a letter of support for the striking doctors in England which was delivered to the picket lines on our behalf.

I certainly hope that our own incoming health minister, whoever he or she may be, will follow his/her counterparts in the other devolved regions and choose a better way forward for doctors and patients in Northern Ireland.

Dr Kerry Maxwell, (Belfast)

Another letter from junior doctor: Sandra Chapman does not understand the dispute

Related topics:EnglandUlsterDepartment of HealthNorthern Ireland