Breaking my own rule, I’m returning to the topic of the junior doctors’ trade dispute with the UK government. Yesterday’s eLetter sparked a conversation on Twitter with interesting and articulate individuals, but unfortunately, there were also aggressive and rude people. The conversation revealed a list of facts, myths, and muddles, which boiled down to two main points: ethics and representation.
While strikes are lawful, parking patients in a virtual waiting room during a battle for industrial supremacy seems to go against what the NHS stands for. Strikes are predicted to delay care and increase waiting lists for 200,000 patients who have no say. While I sympathize with the doctors’ claims, I find it hard to believe that strikes in such personal and dependent services can ever be ethical.
The doctors’ claim that the value of earnings has eroded over ten years, and restoration is understandably the aim. However, what has their union, the BMA, been doing for the past ten years? The BMA’s 2021 report claimed to continually capture what is most important to doctors, but it seems simple wages have escaped their “capture.” While the BMA’s strategic framework is outlined to pursue a healthier world, they need to start closer to home by supporting their doctors’ wage negotiations.
The doctors need to raise hell about the BMA, as they seem to have no influence, idea about industrial relations, or connection with the government. The dispute will likely end badly, with a 23% pay reinstatement meaning a 35% uplift. In the meantime, patients will be stuck waiting. Striking may be lawful, but it’s not ethical to leave patients in the middle of an industrial dispute.
By Mark Edwards
