Would you support the doctors' strike.

It is all very well supporting the junior doctors strike, but if it is you or yours that happen to fall sick at an inconvenient moment like after midday on Friday or on a strike period then you might find it concentrates your opinions in a rather different direction. I have been hospitalised twice quite recently and fortunately got through experience OK. There were times when it seemed that the Marie Celeste was over populated by comparison to the hospital. With so many wanting a larger slice of the salary cake there is inevitably less to go round. For my money junior doctors should have only a 5 day 40 hour week, BUT that would include Saturday and Sunday working as normal working days. Shifts could quite easily arranged around this. It happens in other areas of work why not hospitals. Work patterns have changed a great deal with more and more globalisation.

When they regularly leave before seven and are not home before eight at the earliest.Regularly work nights and weekends.Work twelve consecutive days back to back.Have very little opportunity to see their children.Are often living due to the training system in areas of the country where their partners have no family support and very often run the service on good will.There must be something very wrong with the new contract for a 98% vote for strike action they are not militants.There are only so many doctors so to run a full seven day system would need extra staff at every level from cleaners porters,nurses lab staff etc,etc,where are they coming from,does this lead to a lower level of service during the week?

If only people would not become ill or need emergency treatment at the weekends. How inconsiderate of them, don't they realise that we are still in the 19th century.
Of course ALL services of the NHS should be available 24/7,but that's but a dream.
My husband recently died whilst on holiday in Dubrovnik early on Saturday morning.
He was sent to the Pathology Dept. and the doctor phoned the pathologist who came in to assist us. This would never ever happen over here. Shame.

If only people would not become ill or need emergency treatment at the weekends. How inconsiderate of them, don't they realise that we are still in the 19th century.
Of course ALL services of the NHS should be available 24/7,but that's but a dream.
My husband recently died whilst on holiday in Dubrovnik early on Saturday morning.
He was sent to the Pathology Dept. and the doctor phoned the pathologist who came in to assist us. This would never ever happen over here. Shame.

It is dangerous going into hospitals at the weekend, people get sick every day of the week. What happened to the oath they take when becoming a doctor? My friend worked in a hospital and said "never get sick at the weekend and after August until January when new graduates start work.

i support them, hunt has behaved despicably

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/nov/22/patients-could-die-junior-doctors-strike-jeremy-hunt

Over 600 junior doctors have signed a letter to Hunt asking him to go to Acas with them because they do not want to strike.
No response from him so far. That does not sound like the BMA's attitude.

81% of patients are happy with GP hours, but 10% of GPs are going to quit in the next year because of feeling overworked and underappreciated.
We need our GPs. Time someone told Jeremy Hunt that.

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/nov/23/nine-in-10-gps-fear-missing-symptoms-workload-survey

So you are saying that 120 hours was totally stupid but they should still do it to get the experience?
Junior doctors do not complain about not having the experience. It's retired doctors who complain that we did it so they should.

A close friend,a retired consultant has just resigned from the BMA because of their attitude. He said that it was drummed into them on a daily basis that it was an honour and a privilege to serve the sick. He did work a 120 hour week as a junior doctor which was totally stupid and the following year he said there were two appointed to the same post. Now they complain they don't have enough experience when made consultant

Didn't work. Here's the relevant bit.

"Take a look at this, from Doctors’ strikes and mortality: a review:

“A paradoxical pattern has been suggested in the literature on doctors’ strikes: when health workers go on strike, mortality stays level or decreases. We performed a review of the literature during the past forty years to assess this paradox… We identified 156 articles, seven of which met our search criteria. The articles analyzed five strikes around the world, all between 1976 and 2003. The strikes lasted between nine days and seventeen weeks.

“All reported that mortality either stayed the same or decreased during, and in some cases, after the strike.

“None found that mortality increased during the weeks of the strikes compared to other time periods.” "

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/portal/utils/pageresolver.fcgi?recordid=5652fb52642ecfa70d5f77e4

This is interesting. A review of what happens to mortality rates when doctors strike. It does not make things worse.
Admittedly, it's an old review, 2008, but I was sent it by email, and cannot find a newer one.

Yes quite, for the country to spend many thousands training doctors only to have them leave the country is a/ plain mismanagement or b/ an evil plot to undermine the NHS.
What with everything else going on, i suspect b is the truth of the matter.

I do not think it's whether the junior doctors are worse off; it's whether the general public are worse off under the new regime, and we will be if they all go abroad.
The government are relying on the vocation of the doctors. They seem to forget that these doctors are just as intelligent and capable as they are, and can see through the privatisation lies.

This is an interesting article.

civitas.org.uk/newblog/2015/11/will-the-1st-december-see-a-winner-in-the-junior-doctor-dispute/

Jeremy Hunt has consistently refused to negotiate on new contracts and has claimed that the problems which have arisen are because the BMA has 'misled' the junior doctors who do not understand the issues. He told the BMA that the new contracts would be imposed anyway, even if doctors did not agree to them and had not been involved in discussions. Talk about Catch 22! Under the threat of strike it looks as though he might back down.

On balance I agree with Galen and would not support a strike. Junior doctors have always had a tough time and I don't see that this generation are any worse off than any other.

Monetary rewards do come later to them.

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/nov/22/patients-could-die-junior-doctors-strike-jeremy-hunt

Hunt, Cameron and Osborne still do not get it, do they?

Junior Doctors are medical graduates who are still undergoing training before full registration with the GMC.
After registration they become Registrars undergoing further specialty or GP training.

The NHS needs to come up with a better deal for its permanent staff and stop paying through the nose for locums.

This isn't just a recent thing, is it? I know doctors and nurses who have been complaining about the NHS for thirty years.

gillybob when you say "doctors in training* they are actually qualified doctors and are in (I think) the 4th year of "training" to be consultants or GPs. The term Junior Doctor applies right up to what under the old system was called Registrar (now I think Specialist Registrar) so not student doctors or even what we used to call "Housemen".
"Junior " suggests callow youths and is very misleading.

www.pulsetoday.co.uk/views/blogs/editors-blog/jeremy-hunt-is-playing-a-dangerous-game-with-junior-doctors/20030501.blog

Why has Hunt refused to go to ACAS?

By the way, it's not just the hospitals, it's the GP surgeries as well. All GP trainees are junior doctors.

www.pulsetoday.co.uk/your-practice/practice-topics/education/gps-must-support-junior-doctors-and-heres-how/20030507.article

So make sure you have all your meds sorted before the strikes.

What are they supposed to do then Galen - roll over and agree to an unreasonable demand by a Secretary of State that seems to be determined to reduce the NHS to a mere shadow of what it was? He has already exercised his enormous power by sneaking through a part privatisation of NHS England without the approval of parliament. So we have a situation where services like Health Visiting getting outsourced (to a combination of local authorities and private companies) - and now there are rumours to big cuts in "public health" spending in the Autumn Statement.
There is not even a sensible rationale for the changes to doctors contracts. You know as well as anyone that junior doctors already work weekends.

My father, who was a GP, would be spinning in his grave (if he had one) at the actions of these junior doctors. When did entitlement take precedence over the whole concept of being a doctor? Yes, the hours are long, as has been said before, but no one walks into medical training without being aware of that fact. If the strikes go ahead I for one hope that their pay is docked.