Junior doctors have walked out for a four-day strike, starting early this morning (Tuesday, April 11, 2023).

The mass-media jungle drums are already making their noises about disruption to services, threat to lives (this is nonexistent – a lie) and unacceptable demands (this is also untrue, as I’ll demonstrate below).

Peter Stefanovic of the CWU has made a great little video clip explaining what’s going on and pointing out that junior doctors have had a quarter of their income cut by Tories who haven’t accepted the same strictures, and are saying that restoring that income is unreasonable while maintaining their own wasn’t. Can you smell the hypocrisy?

All the Tory talk about pay is nonsense – well, see and hear it for yourself:

Mr Stefanovic’s words are supported by those of a junior doctor interviewed on the picket line today:

Health secretary Steve Barclay is apparently missing from the debate today – but we do have comments he made earlier. Take note of the question put by the person who wrote the following tweet:

Of course it wasn’t fair to cut junior doctors’ pay, especially when MPs haven’t taken a similar cut themselves.

Sadly, one person on whom junior doctors cannot rely for support is Labour leader Keir Starmer. He’s another hypocrite, it seems:

Shame on him.

I would ask who you support but in this case I think the question is redundant.

The MPs who have lost nothing are refusing to support entirely reasonable demands by doctors who are effectively being forced to work three months of the year for free.

It is an impossible situation. As the junior doctor at the top of this piece said, it means fewer people in the workforce and a higher workload, forcing doctors to work longer hours while still being made to feel that they are failing their patients. That causes poor morale.

I wonder how many are dropping out of work due to mental ill-health, like the civil servants in another Vox Political article, published earlier?

The answer is the same as I stated in that piece:

You simply employ enough staff to get the job done within normal working hours, and pay them a salary that adequately compensates them for the time they put in and the expertise they bring to the work.

And instead of berating them for failure, you make sure that they are praised for success.

Not only will morale and mental health improve, meaning fewer days’ work will be lost due to illness, but the quality of the work will improve and the people carrying it out will want to stay in the job – because they’re good at it, it’s rewarding and the atmosphere is welcoming.

That’s how you motivate a workforce and keep its members healthy.

But – as I also stated – this will never happen under a Conservative government.

With junior doctors – or anybody working for the National Health Service, the issue is worsened by the fact that the Tories have been selling this huge national asset to private companies piecemeal and are trying either to push staff into taking jobs with the privateers or to make it possible to sell the NHS to them with low payroll costs.

So, whichever way you slice it, the villain of the piece is clear.

The fault for this strike lies entirely with the Conservative government. Please show your support for the junior doctors wherever and whenever you can.

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