Resident doctors’ pay demands won’t get the public on side | NHS

I agree with Wes Streting that the upcoming five -day strike from resident doctors in England is “completely unreasonable” (resident doctors accused of “gourmet” payment requests before street discussions, July 17). It has been less than a year since their last salary dispute was settled, following a bitter war that lasted 18 months. Patient care has suffered again and again.

Tactically propagated via targeted social media, this conflict will quickly propagate through borders to the deceased nations. Therefore, we, in Wales, must also anticipate a cruel and chaotic NHS care disturbance in autumn.

Any public sympathy that the doctors had disappeared, and if the British Medical Association will succeed in this dispute, they must change their requests and surely offer something in return. Rather than pleading for the “restoration of remuneration”, they should underline the debt that a graduate owes after five or six years as a student in unpaid medicine and the compulsory overtime that he works at night and the weekend.

Perhaps if the graduates have agreed to work full time in the NHS for five years, this massive student debt could be canceled. In parallel, rather than arguing to further increase their basic wages with percentages of securities that could never be offered by any government to a public sector worker, they should request that their overtime will be paid for double their standard remuneration rate. The public could support this because it is logical and fair.

Medicine is a wonderful career. During our life, it is secure and well rewarded. We have the privilege and the responsibility of being present and influential at important moments in people’s lives. Money cannot buy this opportunity. I urge the BMA and the resident doctors to build a better argument and to avoid another bitter wage war so shortly after the negotiation of peace. The BMA must remember that the police and the army cannot strike.
Dr Ieuan Davies
Consultant pediatrician, Llantood, Sir Benfro

Many consultants and those of us have now withdrawn from the status of patients informed of the NHS would have been surprised to read that some junior doctors consider that they are as precious for the NHS as their predecessors of 10 or 20 years ago. On the contrary, they are generally much less so. In addition, they are not entirely trained, as some claim, until they have acquired the skills and knowledge necessary to become consultants.

As for being professional, it is difficult to assimilate the desire to withdraw care from their patients. The NHS would lose little if those who are considered to represent them in the media was to end up in a job other than in a caring profession.

Many young people with a real vocation in medicine rather than a selfish desire to win more than their academic peers would have been delighted to have taken their place in medical schools.
Prof Anthony Seaton
Edinburgh

Yesterday morning, I had an unexpected visit to the local NHS hospital. As I get older, I spend growing time in clinics, hospitals and surgery of my general practitioner. As always, I was struck by the kindness, patience and professionalism of each staff member. While clearly treating shortages of beds, resources and staff, they are still robust and cheerful. All NHS staff work harder for less money in real terms.

WES STRETING attacks against resident doctors for “unreasonable” requests are a classic division and rules. He prefers that NHS staff, be it cleaners, administrative workers or nurses, blame doctors resident for their low salary rather than a succession of governments who have shot back to justified wages for health workers.

Instead of being their enemy, other NHS workers should see the strike as an inspiration and provide them with their full support. This is why I will visit the doctors’ strike line next week to show my solidarity.
Martin Empson
Manchester

Resident doctors go on strike who claim a catch -up salary. However, speak to resident doctors who voted to strike and frustration and the crisis of morale are less a question of remuneration and more dangerous working conditions, a sapper of their role by the chaotic introduction of less skilled staff such as associated doctors and uncertain career prospects, because there are not enough specialized training places to prepare them for elderly.

Unless these deep structural problems are fixed, no salary increase will solve the problem.
Dr Nicholas Rose
Green Templeton College, Oxford