Doctors strike to defend the NHS and to defend patient care!

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ALMOST 50,000 resident (junior) hospital doctors started their 5-day strike yesterday against the government’s refusal to fund their claim for a pay increase of 29 per cent, and came under immediate attack by the Labour Health Secretary, Wes Streeting.

‘Make doctors feel the pain or the strikes will spread’ screamed the headline of yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, before quoting Streeting’s instructions to NHS chiefs on Thursday.

Displaying his fear of a wider strike movement against Labour’s austerity policies, Streeting said, demanding punishment: ‘It is really important that these strikes are not pain free for resident doctors or the BMA (British Medical Association), because otherwise we will see a broader contagion across the BMA and potentially much broader contagion across the public sector.’

Streeting was backed by Jim Mackey, the NHS chief, who said too many doctors came out ‘with a net positive from a financial point of view’ because they could earn overtime clearing backlogs.

Threatening retribution, he warned the striking doctors ‘that repeated bouts off the front line to take part in strikes could slow down their training, meaning it will take longer to progress up the ranks’.

The co-chairs of the BMA’s RDC, Drs Melissa Ryan and Ross Nieuwoudt said: ‘It is hugely concerning to see the Health Secretary making such a personal intervention into a strike he has had every opportunity to avert. This is the same Health Secretary who is urging resident doctors to “work with the government” and assured us that his “door was always open”.’

‘We have made it very clear that it is not safe to expect senior doctors to be in two places at once; they cannot cover urgent and emergency care for striking residents and continue to provide routine care and clinics at the same time. It is unsafe for patients as well as very confusing.

‘We want these strikes to be the last we ever have to participate in. We are asking Mr Streeting to get back to the table with a serious proposal as soon as possible – this time with the intent to bring this to a just conclusion.’

Nursing salaries have also been ‘eroded’ in a decade of pay cuts resulting in starting salaries over £8,000 lower than if they had kept up with inflation since 2010, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) reported this month.

Clearly the doctors’ action is a matter for the whole NHS workforce, and the entire working class must defend the health service from destruction. Immediately after Labour’s landslide election victory last year, Streeting declared that the ‘NHS is broken’ and that ‘it must reform or die’ and proceeded to cut staff and privatise hospitals and GP surgeries without delay.

With Britain’s economy now sinking into recession and bankruptcy, Streeting and his gang of Labour leaders are rapidly speeding up the process of closing A&E, maternity and mental health hospital facilities up and down the country, while privatising GP surgeries, and diverting funds and patients to private health care.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ autumn budget is taking place in a dire economic crisis, with government-borrowing running out of control, with June’s huge leap in government borrowing of £16.4 billion, up £6.4 billion from June 2024, pointing to a fiscal debt of £197 billion over 12 months at this rate. There will be vicious tax rises and huge spending cuts in Reeves’ upcoming crisis budget.

However Labour must go even further and faster to cut funding to the NHS, argues Roger Bootle from the Policy Exchange group in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph. He is demanding mandatory medical insurance, rationing of NHS access, charging for GP services and ending free prescribed medicines for pensioners.

The doctors’ strike is indeed a struggle to defend the NHS itself and requires the active support of the whole trade union movement.

Trade union branches must attend the BMA picket lines and demand the TUC calls a general strike to support the striking medics. Doctors must submit emergency resolutions to the annual TUC congress in September for a general strike to bring down the pro-capitalist Starmer Labour government!

Saving the NHS requires a workers’ government and socialism to nationalise the economy and banks to provide for the social and health needs of the working class. Now is the time for action! There is not a moment to lose!