YP Letters: Junior doctors are owed thanks for their efforts

I WRITE in response to Bill Carmichael’s diatribe (The Yorkshire Post, January 15) on the NHS. Rarely have I read such a venomous, biased example of “doctor-bashing”. He does not address the point at issue, but simply seems content to vilify the profession in general by introducing various irrelevancies along the way.

I declare an interest, in that I am a retired general practitioner who qualified in 1964, and who spent 18 months as a junior hospital doctor immediately afterwards, before entering general practice, from which I retired in 2001.

I find Mr Carmichael’s snide remarks about “sanctimonious guff” and “trembling lipped, sad faced junior doctors” offensive, and not the sort of thing I expect to read in The Yorkshire Post. Perhaps he would feel more at home writing for the Daily Mail or the Sun.

Like Mr Carmichael and, I am sure, the junior hospital doctors themselves, I am unhappy about them taking strike action, but I wonder what else you can do when faced with an intransigent employer?

Mr Carmichael’s remarks about doctors’ behaviour at the onset of the NHS are totally irrelevant to the current disagreement, and are merely being used to try to put the profession in as unfavourable a light as possible. Likewise the comment about the deal brokered by the last Labour government, which was with GPs and not junior hospital doctors. Nor do I understand why he brings up the issue of class, unless it is to obscure the argument even further by appealing to prejudice rather than the intellect.

As I understand it, the Government wish to introduce 24-hour day, seven-day week working to the NHS, by which it means routine working 365 days a year, not routine working five or even six days a week with emergency cover at nights, weekends and holidays, as at present.

Fair enough if this is what the public wants, but this will require many more staff and to try to cover it by stretching the existing staff ever more thinly would undoubtedly be dangerous to patients, not to mention the health of the staff. Tired doctors make mistakes. This is the issue that concerns the junior doctors, not money, although like anyone else they expect to be fairly remunerated for their labour.

Perhaps if Mr Carmichael were to spend a month “shadowing” a junior hospital doctor, then he might be able to comment from knowledge rather than prejudice. He might like also to reflect on Kipling’s words, quoted by Stanley Baldwin with reference to Lord Beaverbrook: “Power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.” Particularly apposite with regard to Mr Carmichael, I think. He owes the junior doctors an apology.

From: Mrs S England, York.

I REALLY wish Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt would meet your very reasoned columnist Melody Redman who provides great insight about life in today’s NHS hospitals. If he did, he might realise that his reforms will only work if hospitals have sufficient staff. I look forward to reading Melody’s next column and wish her well with her career in medicine.

Who pays the language bill?

From: Barry Foster, Whitby.

HAS David Cameron gone completely off his rocker? He has set aside £20m to teach Muslim girls English. The mind boggles. Hasn’t he looked around this country to see the devastation caused by the recent flooding, the state of the NHS, parents who cannot get their children into schools of their choice and cuts to local services which, to most people, are essential and enhance life? I could go on.

Perhaps he ought to ask the people who attend the elaborate and beautiful mosques to contribute; surely they must have some money? Relatives of mine who lived in Spain for a number of years had to pay to attend classes to learn the language.

I cannot help but despair at the way this country is going.

From: Nigel F Boddy, Darlington.

DAVID Cameron has announced a new policy. People are going to have to learn English if they are to be allowed to stay here. When immigration authorities are already unable to remove people or find people who are here illegally, how on earth is Mr Cameron’s new policy going to be enforced? The Immigration Service obviously needs more staff and more resources already.

Get tough on bad drivers

From: Edward Grainger, Botany Way, Nunthorpe, York.

CONGRATULATIONS to Leeds North West MP Greg Mulholland for raising in Parliament the need for an early review of current sentencing practices so far as curbing the threat we all face, whether pedestrian, cyclist or motorist, because of dangerous drivers (The Yorkshire Post, January 15).

The Cyclists’ Touring Club through its Road Justice Campaign, which began in 2013, has called for a re-balancing of the law to bring some comfort to victims and families who in the past have said that they have been badly let down by the judicial system as it stands at present. The awful case of CTC member John Radford who died some two-and-a-half years ago after suffering “catastrophic” brain damage, following a road rage incident at Holmfirth in July 2013, while out riding (The Yorkshire Post, January 13), serves as a vivid reminder.