Comments on: Tough on Strikes (Tough on the Causes of Strikes?)

By: ExhaustedDoc

ExhaustedDoc — Sun, 13 May 2007 12:48:22 +0000

I might remind everyone that junior doctors have not come down to a 60 hour week in Ireland. NCHDs of all grades are still working 80-120 hour weeks here, with shifts as long as 56 hours often at a stretch with no break. Management impose rotas on us that we have little or no control over, and we face inciting consultant wrath if we do not comply with rotas in some instances. Pregnant NCHDs are forced to do these hours too, or risk losing their jobs, one that I know of in a hospital in the South Eastern region lost her baby after a 60 hour shift with no break when she was approx 7 months along. No one does anything about it and no one seems to care. Yet it’s apparently unthinkable that nurses do a 39 hour week and the whole country is in turmoil over it. I for one don’t get it, but I don’t have to as I am leaving medicine in Ireland in a few short months for ever. Sadly, a lot of NCHDs don’t have that choice, they have kids, mortgages, etc, and have to keep paying the bills. I am one of the lucky ones, with my student loans now paid off I am a free woman!

By: Daniel

Daniel — Thu, 10 May 2007 14:31:36 +0000

Yes, SK, we should give every nurse a new Porsche /sarcasm

By: Cian

Cian — Wed, 09 May 2007 21:41:13 +0000

True enough SK conversely though, the docking of pay is not designed to get anyone to the table. It is designed to deepend a standoff and turn it into some sort of toughness contest. Which is where benchmarking comes in.

Benchmarking is not some set-in stone process, it is as malleable as the taoiseach’s ideology. There is room for some leeway on this within benchmarking (as i am sure there is on the 35 hour week, you gotta be able to give in on something to get something in return).

I am not suggesting giving in for its own sake, but there is a need to get back around a table and consider all demands from all sides and move forward. Simple as that. the logic has to be delivery and service.

I agree with you SK on junior doctors, its worse than a travesty the way they are treated. Its nonsense. I am not au fait with why it is they need to do 40 hour shifts but logic is suggesting a lack of staff numbers to cover less hours. Either a function of medical places (and the way they are filled) or lack of incentive to stay in the system for grads? Or a function of cap on public service hiring?

By: SK

SK — Wed, 09 May 2007 21:28:51 +0000

Cian “I think workers have a right to strike” – is fine, but it you are not working then why should you be paid?

And Daniel, it is pretty much accepted that the Nurses pay claim will have to be delt with through the benchmarking process. As for getting a 35 hour week, I have yet to hear a good reason why they should get this over anyone else (like for example junior doctors who recently came down to a 60 hour week). “we place our lives in their hands” isn’t a reason.

Taking your logic it could be a justification for anything. We should give every nurse a new Porsche because “we place our lives in their hands”?

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 09 May 2007 16:25:51 +0000

Just another bad decision on brought to you by the PD/FF government. Mary Harney is the highest paid Minster for Health in Europe, fact. What has this high salary bought us?

If the PD/FF government had any sense they’d give in to the nurses demands for a start, they are not that un reasonable consider that we place our lives in their hands.

By: The Lives of Others » Blog Archive » BifSniff

The Lives of Others » Blog Archive » BifSniff — Wed, 09 May 2007 14:50:14 +0000

[...] focus on the US that made me draw parallels with it. The message of the film is as relevant to our own society here in Ireland as it is to any other country in the [...]

By: Brian Boru

Brian Boru — Wed, 09 May 2007 14:43:57 +0000

Shows the problem with the public-sector which is run largely for the workers as opposed to the consumers/patients.