Jeremy Hunt's Assault on the Junior Doctors is also an Assault on Women and Gender Equality in Medicine

In the UK, where the National Health Service has since the mid twentieth century provided free health care to UK citizens, there is a currently a nationwide uproar about the enforcement of a new contract on our Junior Doctors. Or there should be. Jeremy Hunt (our aptly named Health Minister) wants to force a new contract on Junior Doctors that will see them being paid just under £23,000 salary including all anti-social hours. Yesterday the Junior Doctors walked out on strike to protest. This is yet another money-saving measure being enforced by our austerity government while they go and hide their money in Daddy’s Panamanian tax haven! I have said it before and I will say it again: austerity is sexist. Poverty is sexist. The Junior Doctors scandal is an attack on some of Britain’s hardest-working, most selfless young people who dedicate their youths to saving people’s lives. It is the deconstruction of British society and it will demotivate young people to becoming doctors leaving us with an undersupplied health service under strain. When doctors work too hard, they make mistakes. This is something I’m sure Jeremy Hunt does not worry about when he visits his private health care provider who is paid triple to work sociable hours. Junior Doctors are emblematic of the way this government views young people generally: as unimportant creatures to bear the brunt of austerity.

The Junior Doctors crisis is also yet another attack on women. Just in case sexism in medicine wasn’t bad enough with the gendered division of labour casting women as nurses and men as doctors or surgeons. Working antisocial hours for less money will absolutely disproportionately affect female junior doctors. First of all there are simply more junior doctors with 77% of NHS staff being female. Secondly, how are single parents (of which there are overwhelmingly more women) and all mothers expected to take the primary care role meant to cope with raising children and working night shifts? Who cares for the children during a 36 hour weekend shift? The childcare afforded with a £22,000 salary?! I think not. The worst thing about this is the Department of Health explicitly admitted this in their evaluation of the Junior Doctor contract:

This government is turning back the clock on gender equality. It is forcing women out of public spaces and silencing their voices. The Junior Doctors crisis is just another example to add to the pile. The Junior Doctors will strike today and then it will be the steel workers, the teachers, the nurses and the police officers. Cutting public services at the expense of the majority whilst lining the pockets of the minority will not work and will not be tolerated. Support the Junior Doctors strike, for the NHS, for young people, for women and for the preservation of what we have to proud of in this country.