DR MAX: this Insatiable Demand For Higher Doctors' Pay Looks Tawdry > 자유게시판

Junior physicians are threatening to strike again. So what, you might say? When are they not threatening a walk-out? In the past 2 years, they have actually taken industrial action 11 times.

This makes me really angry. My medical union, the British Medical Association (BMA), is squandering public regard for doctors, battering facts and pursuing Left-wing crusades without any regard for the cost to the health service.

Their insatiable needs for greater pay make my profession, my long-lasting vocation, look tawdry, negative and money-grubbing. There are moments when I nearly feel I could rip up my membership card in aggravation.

But it isn't just my union that is behaving so disgracefully. The genuine culprit is the Labour government, whose ineptitude in union settlements because concerning power has triggered a greedy free-for-all.

Unless these outrageous needs can be brought under control, I fear the NHS could be bankrupted.

The flashpoint this month is the BMA's demand for a pay increase much better than the 4 percent that was carried out on April 1 - an increase the union has dismissed as 'derisory'.

That 4 percent is already above the rate of inflation, which is presently running at 3.5 percent. In truth, the deal provided to junior medical professionals (or 'resident medical professionals', as we're now expected to call them) provides considerably more, as they will get an extra ₤ 750 on top of the uplift, representing a typical increase in wage of 5.4 percent.

And it begins top of a colossal 22 per cent average rise served up by Health Secretary Wes Streeting in 2015 in a desperate quote to put a stop to the consistent strikes, after they required a 30 per cent pay increase.

Their pressing demands for higher pay make my occupation, my lifelong occupation, look tawdry, cynical and money-grubbing, states Dr Max Pemberton

Junior physician members of the British Medical Association (BMA) on the picket line outside the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle in 2023

That craven capitulation by Labour didn't work, of course - simply as surrender has shown not successful in mollifying the transport unions, the teachers and every other militant cumulative. The BMA justifies its ongoing push for higher pay by declaring medical professionals are worse off by about a quarter in genuine terms since 2009.

The chairman of the BMA council, Professor Philip Banfield, sneers at the 4 per cent increase, saying it 'takes us in reverse, pushing pay repair even further into the range,' and adds ominously: 'Nobody desires a go back to scenes of doctors on picket lines, however unfortunately this looks much more most likely.'

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