A close-up view of the stress and suffering (letters)
From Mmc
14 Macrh 07
A close-up view of the stress and suffering
I AM writing in support of Dr Kevin Cormack and his colleagues whose plight was reported in The Herald on March 12. Andy Kerr (the Health Minister), the Scottish Executive and the geniuses in the NHS bureaucracy who thought up "Modernising Medical Careers" should be held to account. What kind of incompetence creates a system which trains, at great cost, 30,000 doctors for 22,000 posts? What price 8000 doctors without jobs?
What kind of inhuman and bureaucratic madness asks junior doctors and trainee GPs to apply for "Scotland" without knowing where they are applying for, what they will be paid or even the jobs they will be asked to do? And how can a reasonable selection be made when the CVs and academic records are not taken into account and instead papers which have been described as requesting "psychobabble" are the basis on which doctors are selected?
It has even been suggested that these papers are marked by individual markers who mark only one question and who in some instances are not even qualified medical staff. I doubt there is a civil servant or politician who would be happy to apply for jobs in such circumstances, not even knowing where they will be based. advertisement
All the above would be farcical enough and serve as yet another demonstration of how patients have been turned into products and doctors have been turned into cogs in the machine. However, for me it has an added poignancy. Dr Cormack is a member in my congregation. I see the stress and suffering that it causes not to know whether, after years of training and running up substantial debts, he has a job or not. He cannot apply to an area within commutable distance from his home - instead even if he gets a job, some computer/bureaucrat somewhere will send him wherever they want without giving any consideration to his home circumstances or his personal wishes.
Being in a church with a considerable number of medical students based at the excellent Ninewells Hospital, I can testify that Dr Cormack is not the only junior doctor I know currently facing these difficulties. Is it any wonder that the NHS is in such a mess when it is governed by such incompetence and so little human understanding or compassion?
Rev David A Robertson, St Peter's Free Church, 4 St Peter's Street, Dundee.
FOR some years now we have seen the treatment of young health professionals descend from scandal to tragedy.
We now know why. The insufferable, totally unjustified complacency of Dr Harry Burns is, even by the standards of this administration, stunning.
We have apparently trained 7382 doctors for whom we have no jobs. Should young qualified doctors be fortunate enough to secure a post, after years of study and sacrifice, they are expected to fold their tents and move anywhere in Scotland, regardless of family circumstances.
I have highlighted the same situation with nurses. Now we have an "auditable" system; so that's all right. Perhaps if you are counting beans it's all right, but not if you are making decisions that will affect our NHS for a generation. The system's main benefit, apparently, is to deny young doctors the basic courtesy of a face-to-face interview.
Insult is added to injury by the "template selection" of application forms. No sane employer would select engineers on this basis, but it seems that health is less important than construction.
The current administration of the NHS is systematically demotivating our best young people. Now that we have heard from Dr Burns, the prognosis is very grim indeed.
Sam Purdie, FEI, 235 Rannoch Road, Perth.
