doctor – The Daily Opinion

Can Doctors do a Damn Thing?

I may as well get it out there and just say no. Doctors are backing future industrial action and are refusing to accept the new changes to their professions without a fight. Of course, it’s all about pensions where they will have to put in more to get less out. In theory, it’s upsetting as they had a deal, but in reality they are still getting almost £50,000 a year as part of their pension plans. However, with the British Medical Association now calling for the health secretary Andrew Lansley to resign, things only look like they are going to get worse.

kidding

Let’s look at the way doctors take industrial action. They take industrial action by refusing to carry out non-emergency care. So they still go into work, but instead of doing most of their work they just sit around and do nothing. It’s almost like a passive form of resistance or a slow-down, as some call it. Does it put the public in danger? No. Does it irritate the hell out of people who might have had their operations delayed for months because of it? Yes.

So can doctors do anything?

Any successful strike either has to have popular support or power. Doctors have the power as they can simply refuse to care for people any longer, which would have massive consequences. However, we all know, and health secretary Andrew Lansley also knows, that they won’t do this. Even with the recent industrial action not all doctors supported it as they believed that the general public shouldn’t suffer because of any dispute they had. Ok, so the doctors have power that they can’t use. That’s that out of the way.

Do they have popular support?

It really depends on who you ask about popular support as there will be differing opinions. You ask the government and they will say no, which they’ve actually said on live TV as part of BBC News. If you ask a doctor who wants to go on strike then the doctor will not really answer the question. Instead they’ll just talk about fairness for the next five minutes. So, no, they don’t have popular support. What they don’t realise is that people don’t care about your £50,000-a-year pension. To most people, this is an absolutely fantastic pension, regardless of what happened to change. And people won’t have their healthcare disrupted over a dispute like this. Fairness, in the eyes of doctors, has to come through mass disruption. And people are simply not interested in that.

So doctors can’t really do anything at all as they don’t have either of the key things they need to produce a successful strike. As for whether they are correct, well that’s up to you to decide. In my opinion, they are only correct because they already signed a deal. Doctors who were already in the profession when that original deal was signed, I believe, should be kept under that deal. The new changes from health secretary Andrew Lansley should only apply to new doctors who will be entering the profession. Yes, doctors will argue that they deserve those massive pensions, but a few more years training than everybody else shouldn’t entitle you to that much when everybody else has to suffer.

Why should you be an exception?

Locked-In, In More Ways Than One

The chances are that you’ve already heard of the case being put forward by the family of 58-year-old Tony Nicklinson. Tony suffers from a syndrome known as locked-in syndrome. This syndrome arose due to the fact that he had a stroke that left him paralysed everywhere, but his mind still functions perfectly.

As a result of his injuries, he can now only communicate through a special computer. This computer monitors his eye movements and allows him to speak. The case being put forward is that he wants it to be made legal for a doctor to allow him to die, but the government has said that this will authorise murder.

On one hand, the government is right. Such a system would be open to corruption from dodgy doctors and those who would happily kill off ailing relatives in an attempt to claim what they have without waiting. Yes, this corruption would be there, but it’s also something that has to be worked around. You can’t just accept that nothing can be done about corruption. You can’t just accept this and refuse to implement a better system because of it.

What the government is essentially doing is condemning Mr. Nicklinson to years and years of misery at the hands of locked-in syndrome. And make no mistake, he’s not ill. What irritates him is the fact that he’s still perfectly healthy and he will live for years and years to come. And he will have to live like that for the rest of his life. That’s why he wants to die, but why shouldn’t he be allowed to die? Switzerland has a system where people can get doctors to kill them, a process known as euthanasia.

We have the basic human right that we have a right to life, so surely we also have the right to die? I’m quite frankly sick of the rubbish from the past that says that every life is sacred. No, it’s not. Life is not sacred. It’s just a life like every other animal on the planet. They are our lives. And our lives are something that we should be able to end if we feel like it. Suicide is now legal under the Suicide Act of 1961, and with the excellent safeguards against malpractice in euthanasia other countries have in place, it is an antiquated idea that it should be illegal. It’s unfair and it’s just plain wrong. It’s almost as if it’s admitting that the government has control over our lives.

This case of locked-in syndrome comes just after another case where an anorexic woman from Wales, who wanted to die, ended up in court. The terrifying thing is that even though the woman wished to die, the judge ruled against her and declared that she must be force-fed to prevent her death.

Now we are not only avoiding the issue, we are actively working against it.

Justice

Will We Soon be Booking Doctor Appointments and Accessing Medical Records Online?

The Coalition government has today unveiled plans for patients that allow them to book appointments with their GPs online, as well as check test results on the Internet too. Apps for smartphones are to be developed and patients will have access to all their medical records online as well. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said these plans will give patients more power.

Personally, I welcome this move because I tend to use technology every day. I use a smartphone and actually prefer to have most aspects of my life online, from banking to shopping. This move would really hone in the advances in technology and would allow the NHS to become a more accessible part of people’s lives.

I understand the dilemma a lot of patients face on a Monday morning when they have to book an appointment with their GP, often having to spend a considerable amount of time on the telephone trying to get in to see their doctor. In many cases, when individuals do finally get through they are offered an appointment much later in the week, or in some dire cases the following week. My elderly grandmother faces this dilemma each time she has to book an appointment, and to be honest it really isn’t fair. Much like it isn’t fair for people with children to spend so much time out of their day telephoning their local surgery when they really need to be doing much more important things in their lives. In that respect, you’d think that most people would welcome this plan, wouldn’t you?

There are critics of these new plans for the NHS. As ever, we need to look at the positives and negatives of the changes. We might be keen to see the NHS adapt to the 21^st century advances in technology, but many patients may not be ready to put their phone down and pick up a laptop. A lot of elderly patients will feel left behind, out of the loop and quite frankly angered by the new plans. In the technologically advanced generation we find ourselves in, are our older generations being left out or should they in fact embrace any future advances in technology?

The government needs to tread carefully when these plans are turned into reality so that users who don’t have Internet access or don’t use smartphones are included and can still easily access their local NHS branches.

It’s not only about being able to book appointments online. Patients will eventually have access to their medical records online, as well as test results being made available online too. This will raise questions about the issue of security for the proposed plans. Is allowing patients’ medical records to be accessed online a good thing, or will it be only a matter of time before hackers make their own plans to sabotage this information?

However, the government plan to enhance the system of booking appointments, they obviously need to take into account people’s views on security and sensitivity about their private information online.

But, to the vast majority of Internet users, who use online banking and enter their bank details online on a daily basis, is it any different accessing your medical records online and having test results sent through cyberspace?