Jeremy Corbyn has joined thousands of junior doctors as they marched through Whitehall following a day of strikes.
Leading the march from St Thomas’ hospital in central London, along with the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, the leader of the Labour party said: “The government has an opportunity to settle this, they should get on and do so.”
McDonnell said the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, would eventually have to back down under pressure from junior doctors. Supported by teachers’ unions and the British Medical Association, thousands of junior doctors marched to the Department of Health to make their anger at Hunt known, chanting: “Where are you, Jeremy?”
Standing on a stage directly across from 10 Downing Street, Corbyn looked like he was enjoying the liberation from the Commons chamber as he took up mike to address thousands of trade unionists, junior doctors and their supporters.
“Don’t worry, not all Jeremys are bad,” he said, to cheers from those in the march which he had joined just before it crossed the Thames to pass by Westminster, many chanting angrily against the Labour’s leader’s namesake in the secretary of state’s chair.
“The government is more interested in attacking the core of the NHS than supporting those in the NHS who work to keep us alive,” said Corbyn, who called on Hunt to “come out of hiding”.
“I have come here today to say thank you to everyone who works in the NHS for all that you do in whatever grade you are.
“Whether you’re a cleaner, a catering worker, a porter, a nurse, an auxiliary, a manager or somebody working in a an area of medical records and all the others. All of us have benefited from the skill of what are called junior doctors.”
Across the country on the day that junior doctors staged their first all-out strike in an escalation of the ongoing battle with Hunt, placards outside hospitals showed the strength of feeling against the proposed new contract.
“I’ve been radicalised by Jeremy. Militant doctors fighting for your NHS,” said one hanging on the railings outside at King’s College hospital in south London.
“I already work weekends, Jeremy. That’s why I’m single,” said another. “We are the NHS rowing crew. The director of rowing says ‘row harder’. And he’s selling our boat.”
Signs outside Bristol Royal Infirmary included messages proclaiming “Not for sale”, “Not safe not fair”, and “Who do you trust – 53,000 doctors or Hunt?”
“My uterus makes me worth less,” said another, echoed in Liverpool by the junior doctor TiJesumimi Afolabi who described the new contract as sexist and said it would lead to a gender pay gap in one of the few professions without one.
In a show of solidarity, a member of the public dropped by with a box of Cadbury Heroes, while at St Thomas’ hospital, Brad, an American whose wife was about to give birth, dashed to the picket to pick up a badge for the baby.
One patient at St Thomas’ braved the inclement weather to thank junior doctors. “I’d like to register my support. Had a heart attack five days ago,” he told them. “You saved my life, it’s not about the money it’s what they do.”
The junior doctor Danielle Jeffreys at Royal Bournemouth hospital said: “We are already stretched and they expect us to work more for less and understaffed and I feel by imposing this contract they are just going to push people out of the NHS.”
A registrar at St James’s hospital in Leeds said: “If the government continue to treat us with such contempt, I would consider moving to Wales or Scotland, and I certainly can’t imagine working full time into my late 60s for such a hostile employer.”
Ben White, a gastroenterologist who resigned on live TV on Monday, joined the picket line at Newham General hospital after just four hours’ sleep. He said the contract issue is distracting from the real crisis in the NHS, the lack of doctor numbers.
“This is not a dispute over Saturday pay, we need to employ more doctors, there are days with no doctors on rotas at all, and it’s not anything confined to one hospital or one day. Hospitals are really understaffed,” he said. “I think Hunt is a coward and afraid to talk to us.”
Jonah Dearlove, a second-year trainee in the ear, nose and throat department at University Hospital Lewisham, fears Tory mission creep. “If they change the doctors’ contract that will be a chance for them to change all the contracts to bring them in line with this model – the nurses, the support staff, the radiographers. They will be able to cheaply move everyone into working at the weekend, low cost and with no safeguards to prevent the hospital – or ultimately the private provider – from imposing unsafe hours,” said Dearlove.
“This is the saddest day of my professional life,” added his colleague, Fiona Martin. “I never thought as a doctor I would be forced to put down my stethoscope but we have been forced into it by a government that refuses to listen.”
