Junior doctors strike back on

[LeslieB]

You guys are really lovely in the way you speak to people you don't agree with.

'Areswipe' 'cunt' 'dickhead' 'knobhead' 'fuckwit'

I don't think I've used any of those terms, once? (apart from above obviously!)

 

[03gills]

Probably the only post I've read from your side of the argument I agree with.

But I still think doctors should have to work weekends. Just like the rest of the NHS, and quite a bit of the rest of the workforce.

They already do work weekends, you lobotomised shitlark.

 

[BigTom]

If anyone is really, seriously interested in shifting their thinking about the public and private sectors in general.... and I mean seriously, then I would suggest watching this.



It's about six years old now, but still very relevant. But you have to watch the whole thing (an hour and a quarter's worth) to get the most out of it. The NHS isn't dealt with until the latter third of the programme.

This was a game changer in my thinking.

read this thread: britains 4.8 trillion pound debt

I'm not watching that pile of bilge again, Martin Durkin who made it is a well known bullshitter, his economic knowledge is terrible and he's a right wing cunt. Seriously, if that doco has changed your views then you need to work on your critical thinking and not swallow tory lies whole... although that's what you've done with immigration and the NHS so I don't hold out any hope.

 

[LeslieB]

They already do work weekends, you lobotomised shitlark.

At least you have put some effort into your insults I'll give you that.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

If anyone is really, seriously interested in shifting their thinking about the public and private sectors in general.... and I mean seriously, then I would suggest watching this.



It's about six years old now, but still very relevant. But you have to watch the whole thing (an hour and a quarter's worth) to get the most out of it. The NHS isn't dealt with until the latter third of the programme.

This was a game changer in my thinking.

The film maker knows as much about economics as he does about climate change...with the same pitiful results. If that film changed your thinking, then, as amply evidenced elsewhere, your thinking wasn't up to much in the first place.

An example of his economic ignorance is his attempt to include pension provision in the 'debt'; he completely ignores the fact that pension provision has always been made by those currently in employment for those of retirement age (i.e. it has never been a debt).

Louis MacNeice

 

[existentialist]

You guys are really lovely in the way you speak to people you don't agree with.

'Areswipe' 'cunt' 'dickhead' 'knobhead' 'fuckwit'

I don't think I've used any of those terms, once? (apart from above obviously!)

You didn't need to. The offensiveness of your views more than compensates for the prissiness of your language.

ETA: Cuntbubble.

 

[ViolentPanda]

A friend of mine at work had her hernia op cancelled because of the strike. She has a chronic illness which means she uses the nhs on a monthly basis and ends up being hospitalised every couple of years. She fully supports the junior doctors strike because she's not a dickhead.

Yup. I'm in the middle of an ongoing exploration by my local hospital to find out why I'm iron-deficient even though I'm taking a jumbo-level dose of iron daily (600mg), and losing weight even though I'm not dieting. It's scary because the default logic is "some sort of cancer".
So far they've cleared my oesophagus and stomach down as far as my duodenum, and my colon up as far as the caecum (they found several diverticular pockets in my colon, which probably explains the so-called IBS I've had for a decade-and-a-half). Currently they're concentrating on the part of my gut between the duodenum and caecum, which has entailed CT scans and the swallowing of a fuck-off big capsule with a video camera and light-source in it, and wearing a belt-pack for a day that recorded data transmitted by the camera.
If any of my appointments were or are affected by the strike, it won't bother me a bit. Patient safety is more important than me being inconvenienced.

 

[LeslieB]

Yup. I'm in the middle of an ongoing exploration by my local hospital to find out why I'm iron-deficient even though I'm taking a jumbo-level dose of iron daily (600mg), and losing weight even though I'm not dieting. It's scary because the default logic is "some sort of cancer".
So far they've cleared my oesophagus and stomach down as far as my duodenum, and my colon up as far as the caecum (they found several diverticular pockets in my colon, which probably explains the so-called IBS I've had for a decade-and-a-half). Currently they're concentrating on the part of my gut between the duodenum and caecum, which has entailed CT scans and the swallowing of a fuck-off big capsule with a video camera and light-source in it, and wearing a belt-pack for a day that recorded data transmitted by the camera.
If any of my appointments were or are affected by the strike, it won't bother me a bit. Patient safety is more important than me being inconvenienced.

Well can I wish you the opposite of what you've just wished me, and I hope that your troubles are soon diagnosed and sorted.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You guys are really lovely in the way you speak to people you don't agree with.

'Areswipe' 'cunt' 'dickhead' 'knobhead' 'fuckwit'

I don't think I've used any of those terms, once? (apart from above obviously!)

it's simple.
Stop being an arsewipe dickhead cunt, you knobhead fuckwit. If you do, people will stop calling you an arsewipe dickhead cunt, you knobhead fuckwit.

 

[brogdale]

My first ever 'ignore'. I thought it would hurt...but it feels sooooo good!

 

[Agent Sparrow]

The bit that says most of them don't.

But if you include on call most do. Or at least do for a high proportion of their various training roles if not all.

There are many emergency services in the NHS who have fairly equal numbers of junior doctors working weekends. Then there are the routine 9-5 Mon-Fri services, many of which still have some sort of on call emergency cover. IME that cover is usually provided by junior doctors.

Obviously it varies depending on the particular speciality, but if there is no need for emergency weekend cover in a certain area why should it be be provided? Particularly when many of those services are still understaffed even between Monday to Friday thanks to current funding.

 

[bimble]

 

[2hats]

You guys are really lovely in the way you speak to people you don't agree with.

Feel free to quote back to me any abuse I've heaped upon you.

The film maker knows as much about economics as he does about climate change.

This. Plus half baked comparisons of government finances with domestic/personal financial situations. A documentary which immediately undermines itself by opening with commentary from the likes of Kelvin MacKenzie...

 

[LeslieB]

My first ever 'ignore'. I thought it would hurt...but it feels sooooo good!

I can't believe someone would block me based purely on my political views.

This is a politics forum, surely you expect a range of views?

 

[Guineveretoo]

The bit that says most of them don't.

All junior doctors work weekends!!

It is a contractual obligation.

 

[nino_savatte]

I can't believe someone would block me based purely on my political views

No, he's blocked you because you're trolling. Your political views - such as they are - are confused and incoherent. Next?

 

[Lord Camomile]

To be honest, it does feel like the constant addition of the caveat "(for emergencies)" to the insistence that the NHS is already a 24/7 service might undermine the argument.

At the very least I think it's worth pointing out that we could have a true 24/7 service, where you get the same level of service regardless of the time or day, but the government needs to provide the fucking resources for it. Staff aren't objecting to the concept, simply the multifaceted cackhandedness of the execution (this is something of a guess, they may be objecting to the concept itself, I haven't really spoken to the 98% of voting junior doctors who voted to strike).

You see it in every workplace - indeed, it's currently happening in mine - where management want to increase the service without increasing costs, so they spread the same resources thinner and thinner until they break, and then blame the resources for not being able to spread thin enough.

Like I say, it's happening where I work, it's happening with the tubes and they're trying to do it with the NHS.

Of course, in the case of the NHS the motivation for doing this is altogether more sinister and heinous.

 

[DotCommunist]

A brazier, Dotty. Huddled round a brazier.

or in the case of the suffragies women, huddled around burning brasierres.
I was thinking this about the chartists the other day as well. You spend all that time and struggle to reform an electoral system and somehow they are still fucking us. Off topic a bit I know but I can't help think of the men and women who gave so much to make a democracy in name a democracy in fact. And here we still are.

Its instructive and a little depressing to see how these things pan out, the way in which an employer is never held to be the responsible party for organised withdrawal of labour. Always the uppity worker, the mouthy citizen smith etc etc

 

[Guineveretoo]

To be honest, it does feel like the constant addition of the caveat "(for emergencies)" to the insistence that the NHS is already a 24/7 service might undermine the argument.

At the very least I think it's worth pointing out that we could have a true 24/7 service, where you get the same level of service regardless of the time or day, but the government needs to provide the fucking resources for it. Staff aren't objecting to the concept, simply the multifaceted cackhandedness of the execution (this is something of a guess, they may be objecting to the concept itself, I haven't really spoken to the 98% of voting junior doctors who voted to strike).

You see it in every workplace - indeed, it's currently happening in mine - where management want to increase the service without increasing costs, so they spread the same resources thinner and thinner until they break, and then blame the resources for not being able to spread thin enough.

Like I say, it's happening where I work, it's happening with the tubes and they're trying to do it with the NHS.

Of course, in the case of the NHS the motivation for doing this is altogether more sinister and heinous.

Nobody is objecting to a 7 day NHS, including the doctors' unions, besides, what is already there is not just for emergencies. For example, there will be many inpatients who need care over the weekend, so there are always junior doctors on rota. Often, those doctors are frustrated because they want to send someone for a scan, but there are not enough radiologists on at weekends, or for a blood test, ditto, or whatever, because those really are just there for emergencies, whereas junior doctors across every specialism will work at weekends and often have to wait until Monday or whatever, to get tests done.

There are many hospitals, however, which already do routine tests at weekends - I went for a diabetic retinopathy test on a Saturday, and my father went for a routine MRI scan at a weekend, for example.

The key factor does down to cost, though. In order to establish safe, 7-day working, the government will have to put more money in, and will need to invest in doctors, nurses, radiologists, phlebotomists, cleaners, caterers, porters etc. etc. But they will also need to invest in more facilities/beds, because very few hospitals have empty beds/trolleys available for this extra work the government wants to impose on them.

It is critical for all of us, as potential or actual patients, as trade unionists, and/or as socialists, to fight this attack with every means at our disposal.

This is an attack on the infrastructure, and therefore the future, of the NHS as well as on the individuals who work within it.

 

[existentialist]

or in the case of the suffragies women, huddled around burning brasierres.
I was thinking this about the chartists the other day as well. You spend all that time and struggle to reform an electoral system and somehow they are still fucking us. Off topic a bit I know but I can't help think of the men and women who gave so much to make a democracy in name a democracy in fact. And here we still are.

Its instructive and a little depressing to see how these things pan out, the way in which an employer is never held to be the responsible party for organised withdrawal of labour. Always the uppity worker, the mouthy citizen smith etc etc

Well, that view will always exist. What, for me, is so depressing is that a) we have a media which seems much happier overall to present one side of the narrative, and b) a population which seems to me to be overwhelmingly gullible and self-interested to the exclusion of the idea that anyone might make a contribution to society which isn't solely about being paid the minimum amount possible for the maximum amount of sweat.

It's as if everybody's forgotten that pure short-term economics aren't the only game in town, and nowhere is this more obvious than in this futile punchup with the doctors.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Nobody is objecting to a 7 day NHS, including the doctors' unions, besides, what is already there is not just for emergencies. For example, there will be many inpatients who need care over the weekend, so there are always junior doctors on rota. Often, those doctors are frustrated because they want to send someone for a scan, but there are not enough radiologists on at weekends, or for a blood test, ditto, or whatever, because those really are just there for emergencies, whereas junior doctors across every specialism will work at weekends and often have to wait until Monday or whatever, to get tests done.

There are many hospitals, however, which already do routine tests at weekends - I went for a diabetic retinopathy test on a Saturday, and my father went for a routine MRI scan at a weekend, for example.

Yep. I had an MRI on a Saturday at Guys way back in 2012, and have a clinical appointment on the 27th - a Saturday.

The key factor does down to cost, though. In order to establish safe, 7-day working, the government will have to put more money in, and will need to invest in doctors, nurses, radiologists, phlebotomists, cleaners, caterers, porters etc. etc. But they will also need to invest in more facilities/beds, because very few hospitals have empty beds/trolleys available for this extra work the government wants to impose on them.

And of course one of the major resource drains - spending on agency personnel - won't be tackled significantly because of being a cash-cow for some of the very companies that Hunt wants to sell chunks of NHS services to.

It is critical for all of us, as potential or actual patients, as trade unionists, and/or as socialists, to fight this attack with every means at our disposal.

This is an attack on the infrastructure, and therefore the future, of the NHS as well as on the individuals who work within it.

Unfortunately, there are none so blind as those who will not see.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Well, that view will always exist. What, for me, is so depressing is that a) we have a media which seems much happier overall to present one side of the narrative, and b) a population which seems to me to be overwhelmingly gullible and self-interested to the exclusion of the idea that anyone might make a contribution to society which isn't solely about being paid the minimum amount possible for the maximum amount of sweat.

I'm not sure it's gullibility, but rather the combination of "keep your head down/nose clean" and fatalism that Orwell attributes to the Proles in "1984", so self-interest does feature somewhat, in the guise of "self-preservation".

It's as if everybody's forgotten that pure short-term economics aren't the only game in town, and nowhere is this more obvious than in this futile punchup with the doctors.

For 30 or more years now, people have been educated/indoctrinated to believe that the short-termism inherent to neoliberal economics is not only "the only game in town", but the only rational choice. People haven't forgotten, it's more that alternatives seem "fringe" or otherwise beyond the pale.

 

[LeslieB]

Your political views - such as they are - are confused and incoherent.

Sure. I don't agree with any one party about everything.

My political views are a mish mash of Labour, Tory and 'kip...., is that a bad thing?

 

[planetgeli]

My political views are a mish mash of Labour, Tory and 'kip...., is that a bad thing?

In that it reflects well on neither you nor them...yes.

 

[two sheds]

Picking the worst from each.

 

[LeslieB]

Picking the worst from each.

Well that's obviously your opinion. ....

 

[nino_savatte]

Sure. I don't agree with any one party about everything.

My political views are a mish mash of Labour, Tory and 'kip...., is that a bad thing?

Er, yeah, actually it is. It means you're the reason why this country is so fucked. Then again, you could be one of those divvy Third Position types. Is that what you are, Les? A Third Positioner?

 

[existentialist]

Er, yeah, actually it is. It means you're the reason why this country is so fucked. Then again, you could be one of those divvy Third Position types. Is that what you are, Les? A Third Positioner?

I think he's Lezza to his mates...

 

[LeslieB]

Er, yeah, actually it is. It means you're the reason why this country is so fucked. Then again, you could be one of those divvy Third Position types. Is that what you are, Les? A Third Positioner?

What is a third positioner?

 

[stethoscope]

My political views are a mish mash of Labour, Tory and 'kip...., is that a bad thing?

If you need to ask this, well, er