Thursday 5 November 2015

The doctors dilemma

Jeremy Hunt is the minister in charge of Health and is at the centre of a row over the new arrangement for junior doctors in the NHS. The doctors are threatening to ballot for a strike which is unprecedented in the health service.
The politicians are determined to extend the hours that the doctor will be expected to work particularly over the weekend. Weekends are a period when the functions that are on offer in the hospital are limited due to not having the personnel to operate the equipment and a Registrar (junior doctor) to care for the patients.
There is no doubt that the massive expenditure on sophisticated medical equipment is not cost justified if the equipment is under utilised. Operating Theatres, X-ray facilities are but two areas that do not operate at full capacity.  As usual the 'political establishment' want to do the job on the cheap and have tinkered with the junior doctors contract to make them available over the weekend. The roster now demands the doctor to work any shift over a 7 day cycle and not the 5 day cycle they were used to. There is also an argument over pay since working at weekend, even in limited coverage attracted overtime pay. Now the roster is like the one you have if you work for Tesco "you are 'expected' to fill the rostered times". The doctors argue that they will be working longer hours, (one hears stories of them working over 50 hours at present) this in an environment where the decision making is truly 'life and death'.
Jeremy Hunt has form. As Culture Secretary he had made it plain to David Cameron that he was in favour of News Corps bid for BSkyB, a controversial bid which would have consolidated too much media power in the hands of Rupert Murdock. One month later Cameron put Hunt in charge as a 'quasi judicial' observer to ensure the outcome of the bid was fair and in the interests of the nation. There ensued a potentially corrosive relationship between Hunts right hand man and Murdock's chief negotiator plus a number of cosy telephone calls to the Murdock camp to reassure them.
Jerry Hunt is, I would suggest is pretty unscrupulous in getting his way and not above a large amount of obfuscation, some would say down-right-lying. It's a pity that a national gem the NHS is in the hands of such an unscrupulous person.

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