Debate contribution: Junior Doctors’ Pay
Debate contribution by Mr Declan Kearney on .
- MLA
- Mr Declan Kearney
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 21 May 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Junior Doctors’ Pay
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4491881
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Labhróidh mé i bhfách leis an rún. Tacaíonn Sinn Féin go huile agus go hiomlán le héilimh na ndochtúirí sóisearacha. Le blianta beaga anuas, tá pá agus coinníollacha oibre na ndochtúirí seo ag gabháil in olcas. Ní hé amháin gur acmhainní daonna riachtanacha iad na dochtúirí sóisearacha; is iad croílár fheidhmiú an chórais sláinte. Mar sin de, ní mór teacht ar réiteach cuimsitheach ar an chás seo gan a thuilleadh moille agus mar thosaíocht éigeandála.
To cut to the chase, I call on the Department of Health to urgently resolve the junior doctors' pay dispute. It is also critical that the poor working conditions endured by so many of our junior doctors are comprehensively addressed at the same time. Junior doctors play a vital role in the North's healthcare system, a system that is already suffering with very significant workforce planning stresses and pressures. The planned strikes by our junior doctors this week are a stark reminder of how reliant we are upon those essential workers in our hospital and clinical care settings. Our junior doctors correctly believe that they are undervalued, underpaid and overworked. As a result, they have been forced onto picket lines for fair pay and equal treatment. They are demanding that they are given parity with their counterparts in other regions and that their pay reflects those similar arrangements. Others are choosing to leave the healthcare system entirely and emigrate to other jurisdictions, where they will be valued for being the highly skilled and highly trained professionals that they are. Failure to deliver fair pay and tolerable working conditions for our doctors will make retention impossible. We are losing highly trained medical professionals to other places and jurisdictions where they are being treated with respect, decency and fairness. In my meetings with junior doctors, including on their picket lines, I have listened to their experiences of a lack of rest periods and a lack of access to even basic showering and washing facilities. Those are the conditions for younger doctors who regularly work far beyond their rostered shifts, many of whom are rearing young families of their own. Leaving junior doctors to work long shifts — many at night, with inappropriate spaces to take a break, have a rest, get something to eat and get a wash — is putting them in an impossible situation. Junior doctors deserve better. Just like nurses and other healthcare service staff, junior doctors are absolutely central to the sustainability of our healthcare system. The need for the Department of Health to fully engage with them and find acceptable resolutions to this dispute is non-negotiable. It is time for those doctors to be valued and respected and for them to receive fair pay.
452 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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