I woke up this morning to the heart-breaking news that the junior doctor contracts have been imposed without approval from the BMA and without agreement on social hours, pay, and safety measures.
After attending the strikes outside Alder Hey Children’s hospital yesterday I was in such positive spirits. After seeing how much the public supported and stood by us this announcement couldn’t have been more of a blow. I genuinely believed that just maybe the Department of Health might listen to the opinions of the people they’re meant to serve.
This is a sad day for me as both a patient and as a future provider, Jeremy Hunt has successfully completed stage one of chipping away and eroding the NHS. Given that he co-authored a pamphlet in 2005 entitled ‘Direct Democracy’ encouraging the privatisation of all healthcare in the UK, I’m not surprised at all by the brute force he has employed in enforcing the contract.
Rather than talk about what a right Hunt Jeremy is I thought I’d talk about where our beautiful NHS could be heading.
Short term– More mass walkouts and doctor strikes. I imagine these will be without emergency care provided. On the 1st August it’ll be interesting to see how many junior doctors refuse to sign the contracts and instead opt to work in other sectors, other countries and of course for private healthcare companies (I bet Jeremy didn’t see that one coming… oh wait..).
Long term– There will be an end to our ‘free at the point of contact NHS’. We may adopt a French system of partial reimbursement for upfront costs or a Portuguese system where free healthcare is mainly available in the mornings and private the rest of the day. Hopefully we don’t end up with a more Russian arrangement where healthcare is free but doctors are paid so little they need bribing or the American way where the poorest people are left to their own devices and incur hefty charges.
If this excuse for a human ever found himself in a hospital in Liverpool I guarantee that there would be an ever so willing line of medical students waiting to give him a rectal exam because quite frankly he’s full of shit.
