Oh Great, Another Strike – Because Cancer Patients Clearly Weren’t Waiting Long Enough Already
When Florence Nightingale would rather light a scented candle than call 111, you know we’ve officially diagnosed the NHS with a terminal case of strike fever.
Last week my 88-year-old neighbour, a sweet woman who still remembers ration books and thinks TikTok is a mint, called an ambulance because her chest hurt. She was told it would take three hours. Three. I could get to Paris, buy a baguette and still have time for a brisk trot around the Eiffel Tower before an NHS ambulance turned up in Gloucestershire.
Her son, looking as flustered as a man trying to reset a Sky remote with a chopstick, ended up driving her to A&E himself. Once there, they waited seven hours in a corridor filled with people who looked like they’d been abandoned mid-episode of Casualty. Frankly, if Florence Nightingale were alive today, she’d be on hold to NHS 111 sobbing into a scented candle.
So imagine my joy when I read that up to 50,000 doctors will soon be walking off the job like it’s an episode of Britain’s Got Industrial Action. That’s right. Another strike. Five days this time. Because if there’s one thing cancer patients and elderly pensioners with chest pain need, it’s longer queues, fewer staff and a game of “Will I See a Doctor or Spontaneously Heal First?”
The British Medical Association insists this strike is about pay, fairness and restoring the dignity of resident doctors, who apparently haven’t been properly paid since Woolworths was still a thing. They’re after a 29 percent pay rise. Not 2.9. Twenty-nine. That’s the kind of raise you ask for after inventing a vaccine, curing baldness and single-handedly cleaning up after Glastonbury.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Doctors work hard. They’re overworked, underappreciated and forced to treat ailments ranging from gunshot wounds to someone’s emotional support guinea pig sneezing. But there’s a line; and charging £313 an hour to cover a night shift during a strike is galloping over it like a consultant on a racehorse made of banknotes.
Let’s be honest. If you’re genuinely worried about patient safety, you wouldn’t demand your colleagues cancel routine appointments while you bugger off with a placard that says “Pay Me or Patients Get It.” It’s a bit like a firefighter demanding a raise mid-blaze while waving a hosepipe at the local curry house.
We’re now in this absurd situation where NHS bosses are pleading with hospitals to keep routine operations going, while the BMA counters that doing so will “spread consultants too thin.” Too thin? This is the medical equivalent of saying you can’t do heart surgery today because you’re emotionally drained from a Bake Off elimination.
You know who is spread too thin? The woman in the chemo ward who’s just had her sixth session cancelled. Again. Or the bloke waiting for a hernia repair who’s now postponed his op so many times his intestines are basically doing the hokey cokey. Or me, trying to explain to my elderly dad why his appointment’s been moved to “maybe September, maybe never.”
The thing is, doctors love to say they care about patients. But during a strike, that warm fuzzy compassion seems to vanish quicker than hand gel on a ward round. If caring is the job, where is it hiding while someone’s gran is lying on a trolley next to a broken vending machine that’s only stocked with pork scratchings?
If we judged care the way we judge intentions, with banners, megaphones and cancelled knee replacements; we’d have to admit it’s become a theatrical performance. One with a union rep in the lead and the patients, as always, stuck in the wings trying to remember what it’s like to be seen, heard or treated.
So here’s my diagnosis… NHS strikes have gone from a necessary evil to a Monty Python sketch performed at A&E. Yes, we need to value doctors. Yes, we need reform. But forcing vulnerable patients to suffer in order to make a point isn’t just selfish; it’s dangerously close to malpractice.
If your idea of helping is walking out mid-shift while charging more than a divorce lawyer to cover your back, maybe, just maybe, it’s time to ask if this really is still about patient care.
Now excuse me while I go and check on my neighbour. She’s still waiting for that ambulance. I’ll bring her a croissant. From Paris.
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Chris Geiger, Author of The Cancer Survivors Club.
Daily Dose of Disbelief!
Bsky: @chrisgeiger.com
Bsky: @thecancersurvivorsclub.com
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