DR MAX: this Insatiable Demand For Higher Doctors' Pay Looks Tawdry > 자유게시판

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Junior physicians are threatening to strike again. So what, you might state? When are they not threatening a walk-out? In the past 2 years, they have taken commercial action 11 times.

This makes me really mad. My medical union, the British Medical Association (BMA), is misusing public respect for doctors, mauling realities and pursuing Left-wing crusades without any regard for the cost to the health service.

Their insatiable demands for higher pay make my occupation, my long-lasting occupation, look tawdry, negative and money-grubbing. There are moments when I almost feel I could rip up my membership card in disappointment.

But it isn't just my union that is acting so disgracefully. The genuine culprit is the Labour government, whose ineptitude in union settlements considering that coming to power has triggered a greedy free-for-all.

Unless these outrageous needs can be brought under control, I fear the NHS could be bankrupted.

The flashpoint this month is the BMA's need for a pay increase much better than the 4 percent that was implemented on April 1 - a rise the union has dismissed as 'derisory'.

That 4 per cent is currently above the rate of inflation, which is currently running at 3.5 percent. In reality, the offer provided to junior physicians (or 'resident physicians', as we're now expected to call them) supplies substantially more, as they will get an additional ₤ 750 on top of the uplift, representing an average increase in wage of 5.4 percent.

And it begins top of an enormous 22 per cent average rise dished out by Health Secretary Wes Streeting in 2015 in a desperate bid to put a stop to the constant strikes, after they demanded a 30 per cent pay rise.

Their pressing needs for greater pay make my profession, my long-lasting occupation, look tawdry, cynical and money-grubbing, states Dr Max Pemberton

Junior physician members of the British Medical Association (BMA) on the picket line outside the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle in 2023

That craven capitulation by Labour didn't work, naturally - simply as surrender has proved not successful in mollifying the transport unions, the teachers and every other militant cumulative. The BMA justifies its continued push for greater pay by claiming medical professionals are worse off by about a quarter in genuine terms given that 2009.

The chairman of the BMA council, Professor Philip Banfield, sneers at the 4 percent increase, stating it 'takes us in reverse, pushing pay remediation even further into the distance,' and adds ominously: 'No one wants a return to scenes of medical professionals on picket lines, however sadly this looks much more most likely.'

What else did anybody expect? Unions are mandated to demand as much cash for their members as they can get. They don't exist to be reasonable or to welcome compromise. And when Labour shopped them off, the unions sensed weakness. Prof Banfield understands there are more concessions to be won now, more pips to be squeezed.

But the NHS is not some personal, profit-making corporation, and this is not a battle in between an exploited labor force and fat cat shareholders. Our beleaguered health service is moneyed by all of us - and it is on its knees.

This is something most physicians can identify. Yet, over the previous decade or more, the union has actually been more concerned with pursuing Left-wing programs than acting in the finest interest of its members.

For instance, the has actually refused to endorse the Cass Review, commissioned by the NHS as a report into gender identity services for children and youths.

The findings by Dr Hilary Cass, published in 2015, advised versus rushing under-18s into gender shift treatment, such as puberty blockers, that they might later on be sorry for.

It must not be the BMA's function to launch into a debate on the interpretation of medical proof. That's what the Royal Colleges are for.

Sir Keir Starmer and Health Secretary Wes Streeting. This year's pay increase follows resident physicians were awarded rises worth 22 percent by Mr Streeting last year

The union has exceeded its bounds, and I'm seriously dissatisfied about paying my subscription to an organisation that makes political declarations in my name.

These include require a ceasefire in Gaza, for instance, and criticism of China for human rights abuses - as if Hamas is going to return Israeli hostages or Beijing is going to stop maltreating the Uighur minority, even if a physician's union in the UK requires it.

This is low-cost virtue-signalling, provided for no other factor than to make the BMA execs feel great about themselves.

I would appreciate them a lot more if they put their energy into fact-checking their own claims. The BMA is prone to bandying about numbers that don't withstand analysis.

A few of their figures concerning wages and inflation have been exposed, using information from the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Since BMA members include doctors with knowledge in medical statistics, it's an embarrassment to everyone.

Most of all, I dislike them for wasting the general public support for doctors that we earned at terrific personal cost during the pandemic.

It is sickening that the genuine regard in which the medical profession was held simply five years ago has been replaced to a big degree by cynicism and even by displeasure.

Small marvel, then, that many junior doctors grumble that their good friends with tasks in tech or banking are better off than they are.

Junior medical professionals showing outside Downing Street in 2015 throughout strike action

Medicine should be beyond comparison, not merely among a raft of professions determined just by the monetary benefits they bring.

This crisis has been brewing a long time, because before the 2010 union government.

Tony Blair's intro of university charges in 1998 has led straight to the scenario today, where virtually all my junior colleagues are in debt by as much as ₤ 100,000 - and even more.

As a result, an increasing number of younger associates seem to see a profession in medicine as mainly transactional.

They argue that not just have they worked for their degree, but they've also purchased and spent for it. And that if they can make more money by quitting the NHS for the economic sector, or even by emigrating to practise abroad, for instance in Australia, well, why shouldn't they?

It's a drastically various outlook to that of my generation. As somebody who was fortunate enough to have his 6 years of medical training funded by the state, I see my function as a psychiatrist as far more than simply a task. It's my calling.

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I am deeply happy with what I do. Nothing else might change it or give me the same degree of complete satisfaction.

I personally think that one way to resolve the crisis of disappointed and requiring young physicians is to treat trainee medical professionals and nurses as a special case.

Instead of being obliged to take out debilitating loans, medical trainees must register to have their years of training funded by the state.

In return, they would undertake to work specifically within the NHS for, state, 15 years. Their financial obligation would not be a financial one however something deeper - a responsibility to society.

Obviously, they might break this commitment if they wished - but then they would be accountable to pay back part or all the expense of their training.

This would not just guarantee more junior medical professionals stayed in Britain, instead of emigrating, but might also have a deep psychological result.

But the BMA do not bother themselves with options like this. Instead, they concentrate on political posturing and myopic and unrealistic pay demands. It also adds to a hazardous generational divide between older physicians and a brand-new generation with different values.

Unless the union concerns its senses, it will do immeasurable harm to the NHS - the one organisation we are indicated to serve.