TENS OF THOUSANDS of junior doctors struck yesterday and many told News Line just how determined they were to stop the imposed contracts and to beat the Tory government.
At the closure-threatened Ealing Hospital bus driver and Unite member Kuga Kuna brought his dhol drum to support the doctors and a strong beat was kept up on the picket line all morning.
He said: ‘We need to keep our local hospital. The population is more and more in Ealing and they are closing our hospital. I’ve lived in Southall for over 30 years and my family, like so many others, completely rely on it.
‘The junior doctors are right to strike, they are fighting for all of us. We want to work together with all the unions, all of us must stand up. We want a general strike to win for the doctors and save our hospital.’
Student nurse and RCN member Kereen Blair said: ‘I think the doctors are working too many hours. If you are doing that you can’t perform.’ Speaking about the Tory government’s just-announced abolition of the bursary for student nurses, Kereen added: ‘It’s ludicrous. You’re doing a 40-hour shift already, so how can you top up your income?
‘I believe we need a general strike to support the doctors and defend the NHS.’
Striking junior doctor and BMA member Chen Lim said: ‘There are only so many doctors and the Tories are asking us to work two extra days. If they are going to roster doctors over the weekend where are they going to come from?
‘It takes five years to train a doctor. The logistics do not make sense. It’s a flawed plan, either intentionally or unintentionally. We spend 8.9% of our GDP on healthcare in the UK, Germany spends roughly 15%, we have about three doctors per thousand people, Germany has 5.9.
‘Nurses are now facing similar issues to us, with the abolition of the bursary, and nurses who are working aren’t actually paid very much at all. Certainly, we need to reach out to the nursing unions.’ Junior doctor and BMA member Salman Razzaki said: ‘It’s important to remember that even though it doesn’t necessarily feel like it, the power is in our hands.’
On a freezing morning with driving rain, junior doctors set up their picket at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, next to a large banner saying ‘NHS SOS’. They got a very warm reception from staff and patients. Dr Beth Gibson, Obstetrics and Gynaecology registrar, was on the picket line with her two infants. She said: ‘I’m here because I think this contract dispute is representative of the dismantling of the NHS. The only aim is to stretch services further for political reasons.
‘Patients will lose. Doctors will lose and we need to stop it here, before they take away our NHS free at the point of service. This is about privatisation. A seven day service for routine things is appealing, but would cost a lot of money.
‘I don’t know when he’s going to attack the other healthcare professionals, the nurses, phlebotomists, ultrasonographers etc, but then we can all fight together. The public need to get behind us, because we need the NHS for us and for our kids.’
James Rowson, BMA rep, said: ‘It’s a massive shame that they are imposing this contract. It shows total disregard for the health service, staff, patients and everyone in the country. They want to get away with forcing doctors to get the same amount of money for working seven days a week as working five. This will open up the doors to enforcing other member of staff to work similar dangerous shifts.
‘This is turning into a full-on assault on the NHS, not just the doctors. We don’t want to see the collapse of the NHS. Doctors must not back down. We need the support of allied staff from different unions.’
‘We would welcome any support from other unions to defend the NHS,’ Dr Frances Conti-Ramsden told News Line on the Royal Free Hospital junior doctors picket line yesterday morning. She said: ‘We are all extremely disappointed that the government have decided to impose unsafe and unfair contracts on us, without robust safeguards on overworking.
‘We are very disappointed that the government does not recognise out-of-hours working, including the non-resident on-call supplement. Morale is at the lowest it has ever been for the last 40 years as a result of this unilateral imposition. Sadly, many of my colleagues are wondering whether to remain in medicine, given the repercussions of this contract on our working life. We’re striking today to strongly oppose imposition and also to raise awareness of the privatisation by stealth that is becoming the reality across England.’
Fellow picket Dr Alison Berner said: ‘I’m striking because I think the cuts to junior doctors will be the first of many in the whole of the NHS. The only way to save it is to stand firm.’
Dr Leane Brown added: ‘I’m fighting imposition of our contract instead of negotiating properly. And we can’t have a seven-day service with five-day funds. This is not about pay or just about hours, it is about bullying and unsafe, untested changes. Everyone needs to pull together and fight for the NHS. We need all the support we can get from everyone.’
Royal Free junior doctors were joined by UCL medical students ‘roving pickets’. UCL medical student Joe Simpson said: ‘We’ve organised this touring picket to go to our main teaching hospitals – Royal Free, Whittington and UCH.’
Pickets of junior doctors were out in force at both King’s College and The Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital, on Denmark Hill Camberwell, south-east London. Jacob Bird, registrar at the Maudsley Hospital, said: ‘We do not endorse the imposition of this contract. In fact it’s oxymoronic, a contract is an agreement between two parties and we do not agree with this because we feel it is the beginning of the end for the NHS, and a road to a land that we don’t want to be part of. So we are striking today to protect patients, to protect the safeguards of working hours for us, and protect the future of the NHS.’
‘We appreciate all the support we can get because we are at the moment on our own. The trade unions have to make up their minds themselves, but we would like to get some back-up from unions like Unison, Unite and other unions like that but it is completely up to them.’
Dr Hannah Orrell, from King’s College Hospital said, ‘We believe in what we are fighting for. This is now our third strike, because the government are trying to impose a contract this year which will affect all the junior doctors, who are the majority of the workforce of doctors in the NHS’.
‘The contract to be imposed will not just affect our wellbeing and not be very fair for us but it will not be safe for our patients, so unfortunately this strike is necessary. Junior doctors aren’t traditionally militant people and I think this has all come as a bit of a shock, standing up for our rights, and joining the union the BMA. It has brought people together. We are realising that if the government won’t back down then we can’t back down either, and things will escalate.’
‘Today a few of us are going into other unions at a grass roots level, to talk to schools and to the TUC and other work-based unions to try to explain what we are doing. A lot of people in other unions are very clued up and are already on board. There should be discussions between the BMA and other unions and forming those links is important. That is something we should be calling for from the Junior Doctors Committee.’
Elizabeth Young, a junior doctor specialising in Maxillofacial surgery said: ‘I think the focus on the junior doctors contract at the moment is just the tip of the iceberg and it is going to spread out to other areas in the NHS, with other health care professionals.
‘If we don’t make a stand somewhere we are just going to let this situation continue and let them roll over us and allow the NHS to be dissolved on our watch. That would be just terrible so we have to stand together and oppose these changes. You know we are only at the beginning!’
Dr Chris James, an A&E doctor, said: ‘We have got to take the opportunity of this strike to make a development. I think what we are doing at the moment is good and the BMA are listening to their members, but I think we have to escalate this. There has to be an action with more than just junior docs. It has to be recognised that this is about privatisation of the NHS.
‘I think bringing out the other unions has to happen at some point. It is about bringing people out together for the wider case of the NHS, and if that means lobbying the TUC and general strikes, then we may have to go down that route.’
Sarah Williams, also from KCH A&E, said: ‘I think this struggle is going to be difficult and a long one. I don’t think the government are likely to back down any time soon. They think they have got the upper hand over us, but I think they are underestimating the power of 54,000 doctors that disagree with what they are trying to do.
‘The contract issues now are slightly less relevant. Everyone has begun to realise this is more a fight for saving the NHS. I think numbers is important, because if you are going against the whole population, there is no government that can win against that.
‘We need everyone out in support of the NHS rather than thinking it’s already dead and gone. The BMA has done a good job so far. It’s been listening to what its members are saying, but if we are not making any ground we will have to have a rethink of how we go forward. I think support from everyone is going to be key in this struggle and that is what we should do’.
Dr. Amin Ahmadiah, on the picket line at Barnet Hospital, said: ‘It is absolutely unacceptable, the contract that is being imposed. It will demoralise and already fatigued workforce. Rota gaps will become even more pronounced than they are now. Our patients will come to harm as a direct result of this contract and that is fundamentally unacceptable.
‘Our feelings are shared by nurses, midwives, police and the rest of the public sector. We should not be punished for helping the great British public. If this Tory government is so stubborn as to force this contract through, there will be no junior doctor workforce and more explicitly that means 54,000 fewer doctors in our NHS. We just won’t let that happen. Not a chance.’
‘I think the TUC needs to wait until this period of three 48-hour strikes is over. If in late April the government still hasn’t conceded then the TUC should call for a General Strike for the safety of the public. If we don’t oppose this contract, then we are not fulfiling our professional and ethical duty.’
At Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow, there were lively pickets of junior doctors who received constant hoots of support from passing vehicles, particularly ambulance drivers. Arnold Patel told News Line: ‘The proposed contract is going to mean the already difficult rota is going to be even tighter.
‘The way we work it is very difficult to swop rotas, so we can’t attend important events like marriages, christenings, births deaths etc. I probably won’t be able to attend my own funeral! This is a backhanded way of the government shutting down the NHS.’
His colleague Amie Shah, said: ‘There is a big problem with patient safety. If the government put the contract in place they will move a lot of junior doctors from Monday-to-Friday to weekend working. They are stretching the existing workforce to cover more shifts.
‘We already have a recruitment problem because shifts are not being covered and we are already trying to cover the shifts not covered. They are stretching out a service that is already stretched. I am here because I feel passionately it will affect patient safety and also the health of doctors. I am already too tired to stretch me any further. For all the extra hours that I put in that I don’t get paid for, there is no such thing as “danger money”.’
‘All in all, this contract is detrimental to patient safety. The statistics about weekend working and the death rate that Hunt is putting out are incorrect. Why has he not been speaking to the junior doctors. The only thing that he is seen to do with them is to run away.’
At St Thomas’ Hospital, Westminster Bridge, there was a strong picket of doctor and their supporters. Dr. Naomi Wright, Paediatric Surgery Registrar, said: ‘There are a few major problems with the contract. We are already working to our absolute limit, in fact many hours over what we are rota’d for, for which we are not getting paid.
‘The new contract takes doctors away from work in the week and puts them on weekends. We don’t need extra registrars or consultants at weekends, we are covered.
‘But with the new contracts we would have an excess at weekends and not enough during the week.
‘The doctors who do most antisocial hours stand to lose the most money. We in Paediatrics get 50% extra because we work 25 hour shifts. The new contract would take that away and perhaps replace it with 11% This is completely unfair. I couldn’t live in London and have a child on the new contract, and neither could anyone on similar specialities.
‘The government produced figures on mortality, that are completely wrong. They chose the statistics that suited their purpose. If we proceeded like that in our work we would get struck off.’
Sarah Hallett, another junior doctor, said: ‘We have to stop the imposition. We will continue to escalate or action until we do. We have had good solidarity, from teachers, ASLEF and other workers.”
At St George’s Hospital in Tooting, Dr. Lisa Wallberg, a junior doctor and a member of National Health Singers, said: ‘I am Swedish by nationality. I am proud to be part of the National Health Service. I think it is a great system. It’s the best I have seen anywhere. and we have to defend it.’
Dr Sophie Herbert, A&E at St George’s Hospital, said: ‘We have escalated the action to a 48-hour strike because of the government’s imposition of the contract which is going to spread us more thinly and damage patient care. Ideally the government should go back to negotiate, but in practice they are destroying the whole public sector.’
Hannah Barham-Brown, final year medical student was on the picket supporting the doctors at St. George’s Hospital and said: ‘Cameron and his government have to realise that this is not going to stop.’ Rebecca Thom, a registrar, said: ‘The Tories have betrayed every worker in the country. I think we have to continue until this contract is defeated.’
At Hammersmith Hospital junior doctor Orhan Orhan said: ‘It’s incredibly important to keep up the pressure against this imposed contract. We have a duty to our patients to ensure a safe contract.’
Julia Prague, another junior doctor at Hammersmith told News Line: ‘We do not want to work for anyone other than the NHS because we believe in the principles of the NHS.
‘The danger of an enforced contract is that doctors will leave the NHS to work elsewhere. We don’t want to see the NHS privatised. Already, hundreds of millions of NHS services have been outsourced to companies like Virgin in Kent.’
Hammersmith midwife Shelley Thompson joined the junior doctors on the picket line and said: ‘Other unions should come out alongside the junior doctors before unsafe contracts are imposed on them. We are all part of a team.’
At Charing Cross Hospital car horns tooted their support for the striking junior doctors.
Junior doctor Lulu Ritch joined the picket even though she had just finished her night shift providing emergency cover.
‘I feel that Hunt is trying to make us break our own NHS from the inside by imposing a contract which is forcing us to take strike action because it is unsafe,’ she told News Line. Another striker Neeraj Kalra said: ‘We don’t agree with the imposition of a contract that has no real thought about current practices and how staffing numbers will be affected.
‘How can the same number of doctors provide a seven day service when we’re struggling to provide a service over five days? ‘We have to keep going and the strike will have to be extended and would welcome other unions coming out in support.’
At the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital junior doctor Ieuan Reece told News Line: ‘The new contract has unsafe monitoring of our hours and will result in us being overworked. I think the government has started with us because we only have a yearly contract, whereas other NHS staff have a fixed contract.
‘Obviously, if they can impose this on junior doctors they will try it on other NHS staff who will be hit harder by cuts in unsocial hours payments because their basic pay is lower.’
In Cambridge, a strong picket line of junior doctors and their supporters gathered outside the main entrance of Addenbrooke’s Hospital. There was a continuous stream of patients who expressed their support with the striking doctors.
Steven Bishop, a junior doctor working at Addenbrooke’s, told News Line: ‘We’re on strike because an unsafe and unfair contract has been imposed unilaterally by the government. This is not good for the future of the NHS and is not good for patients. It will seriously damage the morale of all NHS staff.
‘The government is pushing through their agenda of austerity. The short-sighted reducing of budgets and cutting of services in the long term will cause uncalculable damage to society. If the government succeeds in turning the NHS private, there will be no going back. This is the greatest care of healthcare staff and wider society as well. I have a friend in Wiltshire who tells me how the paediatrics there has been privatised, and many GP practices are private too. It’s terrible.
‘A general strike to support the junior doctors would be great. We need all the support we can get. At the moment public support for us is very high. We won’t give in, and we’ll force the government to back down.’
