Junior doctors in Islington were out in force this morning as they joined the national strike against a new contract.
They gathered outside Whittington Hospital to demonstrate against the the contract that Jeremy Hunt, Health Secretary, has threatened to impose later this year.
The new contract aims to make the NHS a 24-hour, seven-day a week operation. It would see weekends and evenings not classified as ‘overtime’ hours but ‘social’ hours, giving the workers a pay cut while also increasing working hours.
The British Medical Association (BMA) has argued that the changes would remove safeguards designed to protect patient safety, leaving tired doctors in charge of important medical decisions.
Rachael Moll, 32, a Haematology Registrar, said: “The government is imposing contract on us that is not fair and not safe.
“They want us to stretch what is already a really overstretched five-day service into a seven-day service without more doctors or more money and we just don’t feel it can be done safely.
“I feel really guilty actually about striking. It’s a horrible feeling when we want to look after people and yet we’re stood out here. I heard someone describing it as being like seatbelts. So you’ve got three seatbelts in a car and you move them around from seat to seat, but it doesn’t make the car any safer.
“And I think that’s how we feel. We’re happy to expand weekend services, but at the moment we’re already really struggling to do our job safely.”
Another junior doctor, Rose Crowley, 34, agreed. She said: “I chose to strike today because I’m really worried about the future of the NHS.
“I’ve been a doctor now for almost nine years and I think morale has got significantly worse. Although I love my job and I love my patients, I think that the working conditions are, at times, unsafe for patients already. There are some very unsafe patterns of working.
“I feel incredibly sad about striking today. I would never in a million years have thought I would be striking today.”
It wasn’t just junior doctors on the picket line this morning. Medical students, Tom, 23, and Patrick, 22, who go to University College London and also work at Whittington Hospital, were also demonstrating over concerns about new recruits joining the profession.
“A lot of junior doctors I’ve spoken to have asked why I’m still going through with my training because they just don’t think it will be worth it, and that’s quite hard to take from people I look up to,” said Tom.
“I think it will put off a lot of people who haven’t applied to medical school and a lot of brilliant people will not going into medicine, which is a real shame.”
The 48-hour walkout marks the third time this year junior doctors have opted for strike action.
In January and February, more than 38,000 junior doctors took to picket lines across England, and more strike action has been planned for next month.
