‘We’re not backing down’

Tom Sharp, Picket line supervisor at St James’s hospital, Leeds, and on the BMA junior doctors committee (personal capacity)

I remember, in 2010, being a wide-eyed, impressionable 16-year-old, attending a medical school open day. We were told that as doctors we shouldn’t expect to be rich, but that we could expect to be comfortable.

I don’t come from a wealthy background. Honestly, comfortable sounded all right to me. So I worked hard. As well as a part-time job at a pizza shop, I picked up a voluntary role in my local hospital.

I studied hard. I went through years of study, clinical placements and exams, accumulating tens of thousands of pounds of debt, to come out the other side as a junior doctor. I’d finally made it – I would finally be “comfortable”.

Well, here’s the punchline – I’m anything but comfortable. In fact, I’m deeply uncomfortable.

I’m uncomfortable with the fact that I worked so hard to secure a position in a healthcare system that abuses me and my colleagues every single day, that takes us for granted, and which is led by a government that simply couldn’t care less.

I’m uncomfortable with the fact that the value of my pay has decreased every year since I became a doctor, that – like everyone – I’m struggling to meet the cost of living.

I’m uncomfortable working in a healthcare system that’s haemorrhaging hard-working doctors, who are either heading off to countries that will pay them properly, or else leaving the profession altogether.

I’m uncomfortable with the fact that this is all happening in an NHS that’s already bursting at the seams, and where up to 500 patients are needlessly dying every single week.

So far, we haven’t even managed to get the government around the negotiating table, but the strikes and demos should send a clear message to our prime minister and health secretary – we’re not going anywhere, and we’re not backing down.

‘Work together to protect what we have’

Aicha, Trainee psychiatrist, Chesterfield

Junior doctors’ need to strike goes beyond wanting full pay restoration. On the mental health front line, we are thinly spread to meet unprecedented demands that require a sensitive and in-tune workforce to provide the proper care required. Care that uplifts not only the patient but their loved ones, who often come with stress after waiting so long for help.

As doctors and allied healthcare staff, we are facing endemic burn-out and fatigue, which require our own remedies and help beyond that of ‘resilience training’. On the backdrop of the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis, junior doctors are starting to strain.

We are striking so that our working conditions can change, so that our needs are met, our work environment becomes more attractive to staff, and ultimately we safeguard our NHS, so that it remains open and accessible to all that require help. We are all patients and will all need help from time to time. We all need to work together to protect what we have.

“We sacrificed being away from our families, with no certainty of a career until at least 35, so that we could do the best job we can. No one signed up to watch patients decline, when you know things could be better.”

“BMA members can see firsthand what is being done to the NHS and we are fearful. This fight is about pay restoration, but it isn’t just about an individual’s pay. It’s shouting out that it’s a worthwhile profession and organisation. It’s the whole basis of the NHS and its funding. The NHS has been plundered for years by private companies, and governments of all colours have facilitated it. It’s reported that waiting lists are backing up due to strike action, but we see clinics and theatre lists cancelled weekly due to lack of staff or equipment.”

“I’ve never worked less than a 50-hour week in my career.”

“It would be great to be able to join pickets with the nurses.”

“I really love this job, I want to keep doing this job but I want to be valued for it!”

Thanks to Iain Dalton, Jon Dale, Denise Tooley-Okwonko, Sally Griffiths, Corinthia Ward and Nick Hart

Catherine Clarke, Southampton Socialist Party, reports from the picket line at Southampton General Hospital

Newly qualified doctors told us they start working at a pay grade of £14.09 an hour. One doctor came off a 12-hour shift and joined the picket line. He was responsible for five to six wards with 60 to 100 patients. Junior doctors are allowed two half-hour breaks, but rarely take them since their beepers constantly go off. 

One doctor informed us that he graduated in a class of 40 medical students. He said that at least ten have moved to Australia, some are in Europe and Canada. Nearly half of his cohort are no longer working in the UK. He said that in Australia the wages are much better and the hours are shorter. Canada has just put out an advert offering four times the wage he is on, with accommodation included.

We talked about how unions must fight for coordinated strike action. We also talked about the preparation of a workers’ list of candidates for the general election: we need the Tories out, but Starmer’s Labour does not support the NHS strikes.