Irish Medical Organisation staff, from left, Val Moran, Leah Kenny and Tom Smyth with ballot papers this afternoon following a vote by some of the country’s 4.900 junior doctors on whether to take industrial action over working conditions.
UPDATE: the junior doctors have voted for industrial action. They are obliged to give the government two weeks’ notice of a strike.
(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)
“Three all-nighters in a row, eight all-nighters: if someone’s in single digits for all-nighters, they’re one of the lucky ones… It’s a glamorous, high octane facade but when you’re working it’s 12 weeks of 24 hrs. Six and a half days is standard. You will go in at the weekend, you might get a Sunday afternoon off.”
An intern describes the working condition which apparently led to the suicide of Merrill Lynch intern Moritz Erhardt, above.
Barra Mac Giolla Iasachta writes:
A sickening tragedy that will have particular resonance here in Ireland given our own sorry record. The obscene hours that young people are made to work, particularly in the banking, legal and medical sectors, are not only in complete disregard of their health, but also of their human rights, legislation and the company’s own business objectives.
How on Earth is someone – be they a banker, lawyer or doctor – supposed to be able to work to any kind of decent standard on the back of ‘eight all-nighters’? To say nothing of the conditions – no natural light, no fresh air, generally poor diet… This poor guy’s death is not the first in such circumstances – not the first casualty of this wretched culture of greed and inhumanity.
(Dr John Donnellan, top and, above from left: Non consultant hospital doctor Gillian Judge , NCHD Consultant Dr Nial Kelly, NCHD Chair Dr John Donnellan, Eric Young, of IMO, and Non consultant hospital doctor Jodie Doyle)
You would be too, in fairness.
The 24 No More, a campaign to force ra eduction in dangerously long working hours for Non consultant hospital doctors (NCHDs) was launched today.
NCHDs regularly work shifts of “more than 24 hours at a time”. The IMO will ballot NCHD members next month on possible industrial action.
SLEEP FIGHT
(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)
