‘Nobody wants to be here’: cheers and sadness on junior doctors’ picket line
IIt was a morning of remarkably mixed emotions as around fifty trainee doctors joined a picket line outside Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI): no one wanted to be there, but they all thought they had no choice.
Lauren Wallace, a plastic surgery doctor, carried a sign with some updated lyrics from Dolly Parton: “Workin' nine to nine / It's no way to make a livin'…”
But even working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. would be a luxury, she said. For her, an on-call shift can last 30 hours.
'No one wants to be here. I really enjoy my work and am sad to have to go on strike, but I just feel like nothing will change if I don't.
“I would prefer to work, get an education and do what I have chosen, which I really enjoy doing.”
The RVI picket line for the longest strike in NHS history started at 7am on Wednesday. The six-day campaign takes place in what is usually one of the busiest weeks of the year – followed by the three days leading up to Christmas – and every doctor the Guardian spoke to was painfully aware of the potential consequences.
In the gloomy morning, the doctors were supported by scores of cars and vans that honked their horns in support as they passed by. Every time it happened, the doctors cheered.
Dr. Kashif Cheema used a loud megaphone to cheer up his colleagues: “What do we want?” he screamed. The answer: “Pay for recovery!” “When do we want it?” “Now!”
Cheema said the dispute was over wages, which had been “cut by almost 30% over the last fifteen years”. But it is inextricably linked to the wider problems within the NHS.
“I see people in emergency rooms and the standard of care, for the sixth largest economy in the world, it is not good enough.
“People wait in ambulance corridors for ten hours because there are not enough people to see these patients. It's absolutely horrible.”
He said hundreds of people were “dying unnecessarily” every week because of the long waits, and that retaining doctors was a major issue.
“To solve this, we have to keep people here. We need to show that they are valued, and the way to do that is by restoring our wages.”
Dr. Sumi Manirajanthe deputy co-chair of the British Medical Association's Doctors Committee, was part of the picket line in Newcastle.
“It's a very sad day for doctors in training,” she said. “We don't want to go on strike.
“This is now our 29th day of strike action, our 14th month since the start of our industrial action and it didn't have to come to this.”
She compared healthcare in England to that in Scotland, where “no junior doctor went on strike, no patient had their appointment canceled. I urge Victoria Atkins (the Health Minister) to come to the table and negotiate with us because that is the only way our dispute will end.”
No one on Wednesday's picket line wanted to be there, she said. “We want to treat patients in the hospital.”
Manirajan said that each day she went to work, no one knew if the roster would be staffed. “This is because doctors are leaving the NHS. Last week two of the best doctors I know left for Australia.
“We know we are 50,000 doctors short compared to other European countries, we know we have the worst mortality and morbidity from heart attacks, seizures and strokes compared to other European countries.
“The reason is that we have not invested in our healthcare system and our greatest asset is the workforce.”