Bill Carmichael: Time for doctors to negotiate, not strike

But please spare us the sanctimonious guff that the current wave of strikes is part of some kind of selfless campaign to “save” the NHS.

Spare us especially the trembling lipped, sad faced junior doctors on the picket lines choking back the sobs to announce: “We are only doing this for the patients.”

Oh, do come off it! You don’t help patients by cancelling operations, or
by walking off the job leaving them to suffer.

These strikes have absolutely nothing to do with altruism and everything to do with naked self-interest – and in particular money.

And for the increasingly influential far-left Corbynite wing of the BMA they are also about challenging a government that was democratically elected to power just nine months ago.

Let’s never forget that the BMA fought tooth and nail to stop the NHS being formed in the first place almost 70 years ago.

The then Labour Health Secretary Nye Bevan complained he had to “stuff their mouths with gold” to persuade doctors not to strangle the NHS at birth.

But once they were convinced the NHS would be run in their pecuniary interest the doctors immediately switched from being its fiercest critics to become its staunchest defenders.

And their mouths have been richly stuffed with gold ever since. Who can forget, for example, the astonishingly generous “deal” brokered by the last Labour government that actually managed to cut the hours worked by GPs in return for a massive pay rise?

And don’t believe for a moment the nonsense claims that these strikes are taking place to stop NHS “privatisation”.

The last Labour government privatised twice as many NHS services as the Conservatives, yet I don’t remember doctors striking over that. Could it possibly be that the current dispute is politically motivated? Perish the
thought!

Just like lawyers – another entitled group that has been throwing its weight around in defence of entrenched privileges – the medical profession is overwhelmingly dominated by the well-heeled middle classes.

Go to any medical school and I guarantee you won’t find many working class kids from the local housing estates studying there.

Their studies are massively subsidised by the taxpayer and once they start
work as junior doctors they can expect to earn about £23,000 a year, rising to £30,000 in four years, plus various supplements that substantially boost basic pay.

If they make the grade as a consultant they can expect a basic salary of £75,000 to £100,000 a year plus cash earned from private practice. We are not exactly talking the bread line here.

The deal offered by the Government is partly to address the disgraceful fact that mortality is significantly higher among patients admitted to hospital at weekends than during the week.

Doctors are being asked to be more flexible to address this problem – and in return are being offered an 11 per cent basic pay rise and a cut in the maximum hours worked from 91 to 72 a week.

As a result 75 per cent of junior doctors will actually see their pay go up. Just one per cent will see a pay cut – a fact that should be the subject of sober negotiation, not the sort of Scargillite posturing we’ve seen from the BMA.

The BMA is now threatening further strikes, including one on February 10 that will include the withdrawal of all emergency treatment, including A&E care, by junior doctors for the first time in the history of the NHS.

NHS managers have warned this will substantially increase the risks to vulnerable and sick people and could result in the deaths of patients.

This is a matter of record – don’t let the BMA or the striking doctors ever pretend they were not adequately warned.

Let’s make this absolutely clear – patients may die if this strike goes
ahead.

If you are a junior doctor and that
fact does not make you examine
your conscience then I am afraid you are in the wrong job and the medical profession would be better off without you.