However, I do not condone strike action, which can only hurt patients. I sympathise with today’s junior doctors because not only has their remuneration fallen back, but their training has also been seriously impacted by the pandemic, shift patterns and the European Working Time Directive, which should never have been applied to doctors.
Moreover, successive governments have ignored the recommendations of independent pay review bodies, whose findings have included that those of us on a final salary pension receive less than we should. I was still asking my parents for financial help at the age of 35 when I was a senior registrar, working all weekends and extra nights to pay a mortgage (at 13 per cent interest) and support a wife and three children. SIR – I take exception to the idea that medical training was fully funded by the state (Letters, June 25).Īs a junior doctor – earning 10 pence an hour for a weekend shift of 57 hours – I had to pay for courses and examination fees. It is little, inexpensive things that also need fixing or doing more efficiently, not just pouring billions more of taxpayers money into training nurses, doctors and other staff, many of whom still seem incapable of doing their job satisfactorily. They even managed to “lose” him between wards, as the records had not been updated. This meant that we, as a family, both struggled to obtain satisfactory information about his condition or treatment, and wasted much time having to give the same information time and time again.
It did not seem to me that there was a lack of staff, but there was very definitely a lack of continuity of care. SIR – Sadly, my father died in hospital this week.
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