Is Government starting to crack over junior doctors?

The Government is trying to impose a new contract on junior hospital doctors which will do away with the current system of paying doctors extra to work in the evenings, overnight and on Saturdays. The Government says this will help give us a truly “seven day a week NHS”.

Doctors say that there is already a seven day a week NHS for emergency cases – but routine appointments are booked on a five day basis as these depend on having many other staff, not just doctors, available. If doctors agreed to work Saturdays as a norm, other staff – nurses, radiographers, haematologists – would be pushed on to Saturday working for no extra pay too. Once hospitals are doing routine work six days a week, a number of them will become redundant and can be closed.

So far, the two sides have attempted negotiation, but neither will back down from their close hospitals/save the NHS respective positions. The doctors have held three episodes of strike action – strikes taken on the basis of huge support across the profession and from the public. The Government has waited for the public to turn against the doctors. The public don’t like workers going on strike – that’s what the text book says, right? So far, it hasn’t happened.

Things are now getting serious. The doctors are due to go on strike again on 26th and 27th April: and this time it will be an all-out strike, with no emergency cover. The Government doesn’t want to do yet another U-turn, but how can it get the doctors to climb down?

This is the background to two actions taken this week by two people who may be the only doctors in the land who do not support the junior doctors.

First, Dr Sally Davies has called on doctors not to take all-out strike action as this will put patients at risk. Dr Davies is the Chief Medical Officer for England: that is, she is the Government’s “official doctor” (on a salary o £210,000 per year).

Second, Scotland’s former chief medical officer Mac Armstrong resigned from the British Medical Association because he believed doctors should put patient safety first.

Surely neither of these eminent medics can’t believe that junior doctors haven’t realised that strike action puts patients at risk? The point is that the doctors are trying to prevent further destruction of the NHS – which would put patients at much greater risk.

If this is the extent of the “heavy guns” the Government can bring out to try to stop the dispute, it shows just how close most of the profession is standing. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has been very firm, saying that he is just going to impose the new contracts anyway. He probably thought people would warm to this example of firm government – but it just makes him look callous.

You know that the doctor is always there for you – and now is the time for you to be there for the doctors. Here are some things you can do to say thank you to the doctors in this borough – thank you for being there for us so far and for your determination that we shall have an NHS in the future. The Government has no answers: keep up the pressure and enlarge that crack!

Things you can do

•Pop into the Whitechapel Ideas Store café on Wednesday, between 5.30-6.30pm. That’s when the Tower Hamlets Support Group meets: you can hear what is going on and you can talk to someone about what you can do.

•Organise a meeting on your estate or in your workplace. Contact the Tower Hamlets Support Group – they will be able to find someone to come and speak to your neighbours or work colleagues.

•This Saturday, 16th April, a huge number of doctors will be going on a demonstration in central London called by “People’s Assembly”. There will be a special section of the demonstration devoted to health issues. Meet up at 12.30pm at Mile End Station to travel together to Tottenham Court Road Station. The official assembly point for the demonstration is in Gower Street (1pm).  If you haven’t been on a demonstration before, now is the time to start.

•Next Saturday, 23rd April, supporters are organising a number of stalls in street markets across the borough, from 1pm onwards. There will be doctors and healthcare students on the stalls, and they will be joined by teachers (who are all worrying about schools being turned into academies). The stalls will be handing out leaflets and collecting signatures on petitions. Go along to your local market and talk to the people running the stall about how you can show your support.

•Sunday, 24th April  The London Marathon will be coming through Limehouse. Junior doctors are producing leaflets to give out across London to the crowds watching. Let the support group know if you can help hand out leaflets.

•Tuesday 26th April and Wednesday 27th April: these are the next strike days. Pop down to the Royal London Hospital during the day and talk to the doctors about how you support them. Supporters are particularly welcome at 8am – but go along any time if you can’t make 8am. At 5pm, on 26th April healthworkers will be staging a demonstration at St Thomas’s Hospital, opposite Parliament – and teachers will be supporting them.

•Thursday, 12th May: at 7pm the local “Keep our NHS Public” (KONP) group will be running a seminar at the Osmani Centre, Vallance Road on what’s happening in our local NHS.

•Contact Tower Hamlets Keep Our NHS Public on:
THkeepournhspublic@gmail.com

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