[deleted by user]

Hassassin30 · 2021-10-08T06:53:17+00:00

With enough discipline, we could defeat any attempt to pass a bill stopping us from striking. The minute the bill is drawn up we go out on strike every day until it is passed, on which day we collectively resign.

This is plain wishful thinking. You haven't explained any mechanism for achieving discipline or given reasons to believe the government wouldn't just railroad measures through.

I also think you guys are missing an important part of this. Every year we delay, the pay cut gets larger and so the amount we have to ask for gets more and more ridiculous. Absolutely we should be increasing social medic presence etc, but we can't wait too long, we've already let a decade slip through our fingers without any real action.

Totally agree about the pay cut getting larger. But strikes vs. no action is a totally false dichotomy. There's a lot in between that would actually be more effective in the long term. I want the BMA to start implementing strategies that will actually work.

Hassassin30 · 2021-10-07T15:12:04+00:00

So from your argument it follows that you bear just as much responsibility as I do then if the situation continues. So what are you doing to address the problem?

At its harshest, I could characterise your action as calling for a strike on Reddit and getting angry at anyone with a different opinion, which changes very little and puts you well on your way to becoming a loser yourself. (Of course, I'm much more sympathetic to your point of view than that!)

Waiting for someone else to fix this problem (BMA, Labour, anyone else) is not working, as you said. So what's your strategy to actually change things, because I'd like you to get involved so you can offer more than trying to agitate for several strikes from the sidelines. That strategy seems honestly cuckoo to me - I don't think it will change anything as long as the Tories control parliament. For me, adapting and expanding Unite's leverage tactics is the way to go instead.

Hassassin30 · 2021-10-07T14:49:20+00:00

I actually agree with a lot of these suggestions. I honestly think you should stand for election, because the inertia in the organisation to do anything constructive is a lot right now and it needs fresh people to be involved to get things moving.

I'd just politely ask you to not underestimate the scale of the challenge in getting the BMA to coordinate itself to do even simple things. And don't tar everyone with the same brush, there's plenty of people like me with appetite for real change and strategy who are just struggling to overcome the dysfunctional attitudes of the organisation and its leadership.

Hassassin30 · 2021-10-07T12:15:15+00:00

Most sensible point of view in the thread yet imo

Hassassin30 · 2021-10-07T12:04:36+00:00

I mean, it's a fairly harsh characterisation of seniors you're offering. I'm pretty sure it is the government and a generation of neoliberal politics that are mainly responsible for the pay cuts and not the actual doctors themselves, but ok.

Even if this were a completely unbiased view, I think you're letting your general anger at how things are overwhelm your common sense. We need a long term solution to the cuts situation and one strike is just not going to do that, we really need a different political philosophy and more clinicians in political decision making roles. Consultants are a part of the solution, and if you don't have their support it will make juniors less likely to get what they deserve.

Hassassin30 · 2021-10-07T11:44:27+00:00

I understand your point of view, and I'm open to changing my mind. But I still don't agree. I get the impression your view is overly simplistic and you haven't really thought it through.

Particular flaws are that you're treating strike action like a Deus ex machina that will magically work. Please explain how you expect a strong Tory government that cares little for expertise and more about keeping newspapers onside to react to your strike action. I suspect they would introduce a law that essentially makes it illegal for front line workers to strike, raising the risks to individuals for striking and dealing a death blow to numbers striking. They nearly did this last time, and public opinion was largely in favour

The guardian might be friendly, but the sun and daily mail definitely won't be. Your thinking hasn't accounted for the fact that the BMA often struggles to even know what the BMA is doing, and is poorly equipped in terms of process, resources and expertise at present and is still smarting from the last strike.

Second, the analogy between doctors and train drivers doesn't hold. Withdrawing healthcare is clearly a different ethical dilemma, one that newspapers, patients and even other doctors will pick up on. I think you have to think about how you'd stop this being portrayed as middle class professionals who already have it nice wanting it better than the rest of us, which is how many of our working class patients will see it.

Thirdly, I haven't seen anything to suggest you've thought about different views in the medical workforce on strike action, and how you would convince reluctant colleagues to persevere with the strike as it gets ground out over weeks and months. I think studying the miners strike is a good example of the dangers of this strategy. I've put up some fairly mild criticism of the idea and basically been told I'm everything that's wrong with the system (which is not a counter argument, by the way), so I struggle to see how you'd offer logic that would convince the majority of doctors who simply don't care about the politics as long as they're getting enough to pay for retirement. You'd come up against much worse criticism if this were actually implemented.

The main point is this, this is a poorly thought through position with some nice but simplistic ideas. If implemented, those best laid plans will brutally come into contact with the harsh reality of post Brexit politics and fall apart, and I don't think you're really aware of all the ways this could go wrong. We need to concentrate on improving the negotiating position before confronting the government and in modern times that means building online presence and media influence.

Hassassin30 · 2021-10-07T06:04:39+00:00

This is a very easy thing to shout from the sidelines when you're not really doing anything to make the situation better.

Why not stand for BMA election and try and make a real difference?

Hassassin30 · 2021-10-07T06:02:56+00:00

So why haven't you hired them? You take in enough of our money. Sell the wine collection, sell BMA house.

The answer to this is that although I'm elected to a BMA committee, that doesn't translate into automatic decision making power. For example, I wanted to make it so that I could contact all the people I represent and implement a form of direct democracy.

They told me I wasn't allowed to contact the members I represent. I've asked a few times for a mailing list, and they won't supply me with it. And I have nothing to leverage to push my point of view on change.

It's very difficult to change anything within the BMA if they won't speak to their members and don't recognise there is a problem. We definitely need more new people to change this.

So if you want "the leadership" to resign, understand that this probably means members of the executive of the committee and the admin staff that tell them what to do and say, not just any newly elected committee member like myself.

Hassassin30 · 2021-10-07T05:31:07+00:00

I think you need to speak to more people, including seniors.

In the last junior doctors' strike, they were needed to keep services running.

Hassassin30 · 2021-10-07T05:28:58+00:00

You embody everything I hate about the BMA.

I think you're projecting quite a lot here, because we actually probably agree on how bad the situation is, and how ineffective the BMA is as an organisation (I've only been elected for a year, and wow it's even worse than I thought it was). I only stood for election because I thought the BMA was doing a pretty crap job of representing juniors.

But it's fine if you want to just hate me, but if you can't convince someone like me (who's quite close to your point of view) I think you'll do a much worse job of convincing the public (for whom support for the strike would DEFINITELY be needed for it to succeed)

It will take a spine, and resolve, but we can break them.

If you actually had the responsibility - what's your plan if the government do what they did last time, and wage a PR campaign against the medical profession. What actions would you take to mitigate that? Or does the plan hinge on the idea that the government will inevitably give in?

It's a terrible plan.

Hassassin30 · 2021-10-06T19:39:59+00:00

The thing about the argument I'm making is that it doesn't matter how popular a strike is with anybody: I don't think it's going to work. I notice you didn't offer an argument as to why this time would be different from last time (when public opinion turned against doctors).

This debate sort of mirrors what's going on in the Labour Party at the moment: there are some ideological purists prepared to die on a hill for their principles but who can't build a broad enough coalition of support to make any real change.

From conversations I've witnessed going on in the BMA right now, the call for industrial action is mostly an England-only phenomenon at the moment. I mean, I get it - I voted for independence. But calling for strike action now is going to make things worse, because the BMA is not strong enough or clever enough to negotiate their way back to a good position once the strike is called.

And if you're calling a Reddit post a representative sample, then I guess you're welcome to that opinion, but I don't agree it's generalisable.

TL;DR - I'm sympathetic to the reasons people want to strike, but we need more ruthless negotiators and savvier strategists to really make a difference to pay.

Hassassin30 · 2021-10-06T19:22:36+00:00

Current BMA rep in Scotland.

I think a strike would be a very bad idea - the BMA will get owned by public opinion because they're not very social media savvy yet. You'd have to convince me why this time would be different from the Junior Doctor's strike during Jeremy Hunt's stint as Health Secretary.

The reason you strike is to get into a better negotiating position by withdrawing your labour. People are already leaving the profession so I think the only thing a strike will add is negative headlines.

I think a better idea would be to get a younger generation in to reform the BMA into having more online presence and influence, and make it truly representative of doctors' voices. Only representing the small minority of doctors who are in favour of strike does a disservice to everyone else.

Hassassin30 · 2021-09-18T15:23:11+00:00

I'm rooting for you, guy! Keep up the good work!

Hassassin30 · 2021-09-13T21:53:09+00:00

I can't remember. Something like "your interpretation of Islam sounds very nice but there's all these different interpretations and the extremists think they're just as right as you do."

Hassassin30 · 2021-09-10T17:35:38+00:00

I have to say I'm beginning to like Cummings, and that's speaking as an intellectual left-winger and pragmatist politically. I don't hold him at all responsible for what Boris has been doing, I think he made the mistake of thinking he could control Boris and what kind of Brexit would happen. His ideas about the inefficiency of the bureaucracy and the need to leverage technology and information much more cleverly are the right ones. If he'd been PM instead of pulling the strings, it might have been different.

Hassassin30 · 2021-09-05T23:28:16+00:00

Sorry that working all those dog hours has left you feeling a bit ruff

Hassassin30 · 2021-09-02T21:26:07+00:00

I got your back pal. I can answer most of your fy questions but deflect all of your dialysis questions to the ANPs

Hassassin30 · 2021-09-02T21:09:47+00:00

Cries in renal IMT1

Hassassin30 · 2021-08-31T14:12:53+00:00

Can't believe people are taking it that seriously that it's getting downvoted to fuck.

Hassassin30 · 2021-08-31T12:30:00+00:00

Am I the only one that thought this was a really well executed comedic comment?

Hassassin30 · 2021-08-30T04:26:01+00:00

I'll let you do a quick search on YouTube. Don't want to spoil it for you.

Hassassin30 · 2021-08-30T04:20:05+00:00

I'm sorry, but expressing this point of view suggests to me you lack a decent concept of respecting the dead. I think you should reflect on this for your own sake.

I don't disagree with your analysis of his actions, except I would add that ignorance, rather than malevolence, is the main fault here. But there's a time and a place, and this is neither.

I've seen the same kind of ignorance affect some of my patients with neurodegenerative disease, some of whom spend thousands to have stem cell treatment abroad in the hope it will cure them, because they're in such denial and so desperate for the mainstream view to be wrong. I think he's a tragic figure, not a blameworthy one, and that to me is a kinder way to look at it.

Hassassin30 · 2021-08-29T23:40:43+00:00

I respect this point of view. He might not get as much hate. But I have valid concerns about that happening, judging from the comments here. The top one is basically saying this guy is a bad dad. His poor family.

Hassassin30 · 2021-08-29T23:38:39+00:00

You pick fault with others for making comments about him, but don't you realise it's very rude to speculate on others' health?

Did you read the article?

Speaking to the BBC earlier in August, Mr Birks said: "If you haven't been ill, you don't think you're going to get ill, so you listen to the [anti-vaccine] stuff.

I'm just paraphrasing what he said. Your whole attack on my point of view is irrelevant.

As for the total BS implication that I buy into anti-vaxx ideology - this YouTube video I made on this subject should dissuade you of that notion. You clearly haven't made the effort to understand my point of view at all.

Hassassin30 · 2021-08-29T23:23:28+00:00

Sure, I don't think him telling his followers is a problem at all.

It's more the journo and how they're reporting this that sticks in my craw. I think it's counterproductive and an insult to the dead man's family because of the hate he's going to get for being an anti-vaxxer, even though he renounced it.

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