Young Doctors on Strike.

Mountain Dewgong

Mountain Dewgong

It's a huge problem in New Zealand and I'm sure it probably is prevalent in most other developed nations too. Basically in order to get a job through a district health board to work in a hospital junior doctors need to sign a Memorandum of Understanding. Which gives the district health board immense powers over the doctors and gives them little to no say in their hours and rostering.

Though only meant to be working 72 hours a week, DHB's can roster junior doctors on for as many as 100 hours with no penalty pay. Currently the doctors can be asked to work as many as 12 consecutive 10 hour night shifts, which to anyone is utterly ridiculous.

As far as I have heard, this is not a pay dispute, the people who I have talked about don't want more money, they want less hours and a more fair contract.

I suppose this is where ethical issues come in. During high school I used to work at a cafe, and I can say after 9/10 hour shifts of just making coffees and working the till I was utterly drained. Surely doctors cannot be expected to work up to 12 hours straight and still maintain adequate patient care in both diagnoses and surgery.

But on the other hand is the the doctors' right to be able to strike, to leave the hospital and patients in order to seek better working conditions?




Links for your interest:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/4124894/Junior-doctors-set-date-for-strike

http://journal.nzma.org.nz/journal/119-1236/2037/

Thoughts smogan??
 
As someone who wants to attend medical school in the future, this is pretty interesting. I know Canada's residency programs aren't as bad overseas, but I've heard America's is downright nightmarish, with no sort of protection from lawsuits for damages. The lack of innovation (for the lack of better word) is killing practical medicine for young people, according to a medical school student at Harvard.

I'll be keeping an eye out for this.
 
Is this not simply the result of the peak medical body artificially restricting supply to keep service fees high? To make up the difference since you're keeping the number of doctors down, you need the doctors you have to work huge hours.

We have that problem in Australia with the AMA.
 
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You probably think i'm trolling your thread, but my parents are pretty much HEA-parents and they're obsessed with me becoming a doctor (i recently switched from a bio major into computer science however) at one point in my life I wanted to be a doctor, but idk the idea isn't appealing to me anymore.
 
Yea this is also really interesting to me for the same reason as Eradd. I definitely wouldn't be interested in working the 12 night shifts in a row but if a hospital is short staffed or something I guess I can see why they'd have to do it. Hopefully it works itself out in the 5-6 years I have before getting my MD!
 
working 10-12 hour shifts isnt that bad at all. and working 12 shifts straight isnt abnormal, its just how some places are run. its usually something like 12 shifts on then 7 days off.
 
I worked retail as a manager and during the holiday season I would work open to close which is like 6am to midnight some days and I would never want to see a doctor that is working similar hours. The body can function like that for a while but the mind sure as hell can't.
 
Atlas said:
working 10-12 hour shifts isnt that bad at all. and working 12 shifts straight isnt abnormal, its just how some places are run. its usually something like 12 shifts on then 7 days off.
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Is it really wise to give a first year resident that many hours? The lack of experience and lack of sleep aren't a good combination, especially with America's shitty policy of not protecting its residents.
 
Late reply I know, but I have been busy, I meant this post to be bigger than it was. But I think I will start small.

MrIndigo said:
Is this not simply the result of the peak medical body artificially restricting supply to keep service fees high? To make up the difference since you're keeping the number of doctors down, you need the doctors you have to work huge hours.

We have that problem in Australia with the AMA.
Click to expand...
Anyway I pretty strongly doubt this is this is the case. I am not familiar with this particular strike at all, actually I didnt hear anything about it before this thread, but smaller numbers of people being expected to work longer and harder and for less pay is pretty much how all healthcare is run.

There is basically never a year that goes by without some kind of hospital workers strike, and hospital workers arent really paid all that well other than doctors. Striking means you dont get paid, they dont do this lightly, it's just that their working conditions are absolutely shit.

And I am not trying to tie this to the current government, this has happened as long as I can remember it. Though they did recently announce some kind of plan paid for by inefficiencies in the healthcare sector, which basically just means working what little staff they have even harder.

What keeps hospitals afloat is the fact that hospital staff put up with this. I assume because they know they have to or the hospitals will sink. Generally whenever any aspect of the hospital gets privatised, the costs go way up and standards drop, because people just arent willing to put up with that shit in the private sector.
 
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