A doctor writes:
Bruvversansisters it’s time to down stethoscopes and show the Capitalist ruling-class bosses who is really running the show. We are sick-an-tired of being taken for granted, treated like mushrooms and forced to work all hours just to scrape a living while the upper toffs swan around in their chauffeur-driven Jaguars enjoying a life of leisure on the backs of the poor, oppressed doctoring classes.
Well, I have a message for you Mister So-called Jeremy Hunt, you can push us around only so far before even the poor, oppressed doctoring worm turns and you are on the receiving end of the full working-class backlash.
One out, all out, you don’t get us, we’re part of the doctors’ union and we aren’t fighting for our rights we are fighting for human rights, for the benefit of every single user of the so-called National Health Service.
We’re fighting to overthrow the capitalist system of privatisation, the Thatcherisation of national ‘elf, Thatcher and her son Cameron. Jeremy Corbyn is right. Why should we fight other people’s wars in far off countries we know nothing about?
What’s Syria got to do with the national ‘elf? This is where the money has to go. We can’t afford to waste billions on a foreign war when we have so many ishoos here at home. Ishoos, sistersanbuvvers, which we can only resolve through a negotiated settlement to the long-standing demands of Britain’s hard-working, oppressed, taken-for-granted doctors.
We’re standing up to this ‘Elf Secretary not for ourselves but for oppressed health workers everywhere – oppressed consultants, oppressed leading surgeons, oppressed staff nurses, oppressed managers, oppressed directors, oppressed chairpersons as well as oppressed former employees who have retired early with oppressively huge payoffs and been re-employed at even more oppressively generous rates of pay.
Not to mention oppressed ‘elf service agency staff everywhere, who fulfil a very real need especially at weekends when every self-respecting doctor is out on the golf course training to become a consultant.
This is where the Government commitment is needed. Not on some far-flung battlefield any more than its money should be wasted on nuclear deterrents when it should be devoted to the crumbling infrastructure of our beloved NHS.
This service is still the envy of the world. Or it would be if it paid its oppressed doctors a living wage and did not demand long, anti-social hours from young men and women who are sometimes so exhausted when we come off a shift that we don’t even have the energy to person the picket lines or write a protest letter to our MPs.
Call this democracy? Call this freedom?
We need to stand up to this so-called elected Government and its so-called election pledges which less than 25 per cent of the population actually voted for, and absolutely no-one in Scotland or London. Or Wales.
So what if more people die at weekends than during the week? Is that our responsibility as doctors? Of course not. It’s because people who go to hospital at the weekend are sicker than Monday-to-Friday patients.
That should be obvious even to stupid Tory politicians. Do they not realise nobody goes to hospital at the weekend if they can help it?
First off, it means not taking any time off work. Who would go to hospital in their own time when they could go at a time when their employer was paying? It might mean missing the football or not going shopping. It certainly means risking poor treatment and very likely a premature death.
So you only go to hospital at the weekend if you’re dying anyway. Which means it can’t be the responsibility of our fellow hard-working doctors if there aren’t many of us actually on the wards on Saturdays and Sundays.
We – the professionals – know our patients and we know those admitted at the weekend will probably die anyway. So why should we be forced to disrupt our social lives just to pretend we could do something about this even though we know we can’t possibly?
The Government thinks more deaths at the weekend is some sort of killer argument. We have to show the boot is on the other foot. Bruvversansisters this is about so much more than pay and conditions – important though they are. This is about the future of the national ‘elf. This is about our children and our children’s children.
If we give in to the demands of this so-called democratically-elected Government we might as well sell off the hospitals, privatise the ambulances and condemn the old, the sick, the disabled, not to mention the transgender community, to a short and brutal life as oppressed, neglected outsiders.
We have to make a stand because this Fascist regime is determined to dismantle the National ‘Elf and sell it off to their friends in the City so a few fat-cat party donors can line their pockets at the expense of the working man and the doctoring classes.
The ‘elf service is great – walking out helps keep it that way.
