What two things have the following people got in common?
- My nephew’s mate Alvin who recently started a job as a train driver
- My cousin Paul who scoots around a paper mill on a fork-lift truck
- My mate Keith who walks up and down trains checking people have all got tickets
- My mate Mark who drives the lorry delivering supplies to the paper mill where my cousin works
The answer:
- Firstly all
of them have no more formal qualifications than those with which they left
school (aged sixteen)
- Secondly all of them are paid far more than I am.
Sometimes
I worry about the future of hospitals. Where is the incentive to work in one?
If you
want to work in a hospital laboratory in the UK a formal degree is a
prerequisite which takes between three and four years to graduation. After this
you will need to complete a portfolio to obtain the IBMS certificate of
competence; that usually takes another year to eighteen months. So after nearly
five years of effort and a lot of debt incurred you are ready to start work…
You will
be expected to be available for work at all hours day and night. Over the years
I’ve often had months without a single weekend off. I missed my daughter’s
first eight birthday parties and can’t remember when I last had a complete
Christmas break.
You are
legally expected to create something like this blog (maybe not as a website,
but you have to do all that CPD for no extra pay)
If you
make a mistake you might kill someone, and when that happens no one remembers
all the effort that you put in over the years…
So what is
the answer… The job needs to be more attractive. At the risk of appearing to be
political, the current government’s policy to (effectively) cut the
wages of healthcare workers is very short-sighted. Why would anyone work in a hospital
when you can work better hours doing a far less stressful job for more money.
There is a petition on line which hopes to better the lot of all UK hospital workers.
Sign the petition by clicking here – and tell your mates about it too…
(Sorry about the politics – normal service will be resumed as soon as possible).
