Jessop's Hospital Cutbacks

[ricardo 2005]

Just had a baby boy at jessop's.

Staff were wonderful and looked after us brilliantly, but couldn’t believe the problems with cutbacks and how they are affected. I was told that last week there were 12 women ready to give birth and only 4 midwives!!! There have been times when the midwifes have no domestic or auderly backup and they end up doing 101 jobs over and above what they should have to. Also it's only the goodwill of staff that keeps the place going, many a time they work an extra shift on top of their normal 12 hours because they have nobody to take them off.

The powers that be need to understand what's going on so that they can sort this out and give the staff the support they need.

Also how can someone like a midwife and doctor who bring life into the world be paid so little!!!! The worlds gone mad.

[scoop]

Congratulations Ricardo!

[KenH]

Also how can someone like a midwife and doctor who bring life into the world be paid so little!!!! The worlds gone mad.

 

The doctors and midwifes didn't bring any life into the world, you did.

 

The root of the problem isn't pay, certainly not for doctors who are over paid. It is the entire system that needs a shake up and the result could be a higher standard for even less money. If the emphasis is taken away from births in hospital so that the normal place to give birth is the home but obviously women can choose hospital if they ask for it then the whole system will cost much less and the environment would be better for everyone.

 

On the subject of double shifts, if you choose to be a midwife then you should expect not to go home until the woman that you started working with has given birth even if that means 24 hours. The real issue is that they then have flexible time around those long events.

[Titian]

The administration involved in midwifery is also a gripe for midwives. They spend very little time delivering babies and lots of time completing paper work to avoid litigation. Another symptom of the nanny state (pardon the pun).

 

I don't think it's the profession it used to be and a lot of the pleasure is taken out of it for them quite early on. I'm willing to be told different though by a training or practicing midwife.

[ricardo 2005]

Sorry KenH but don't agree at all. How can you say that doctors are overpaid when you have someone like an IT consultant earning more for doing less hours and nowhere near the same responsibility.

I agree that the whole NHS needs a shake up but to make the normal place to give birth at home would put a lot of babies at risk. Fair enough if people want home births it should be an option but having had two experiences where we needed specialist emergency treatment whilst giving birth, which couldn't have been done at home I'm glad we were in the hospital.

 

PS The midwifes and doctors DID bring my baby into the world as it was an emergency caesarean!

[scoop]

Sorry KenH but don't agree at all. How can you say that doctors are overpaid when you have someone like an IT consultant earning more for doing less hours and nowhere near the same responsibility.

I agree that the whole NHS needs a shake up but to make the normal place to give birth at home would put a lot of babies at risk. Fair enough if people want home births it should be an option but having had two experiences where we needed specialist emergency treatment whilst giving birth, which couldn't have been done at home I'm glad we were in the hospital.

 

PS The midwifes and doctors DID bring my baby into the world as it was an emergency caesarean!

 

Actually Ricardo, research indicates that in a healthy full term pregnancy a home birth is likely to lead to fewer complications than a hospital birth, and that most births that do require medical intervention are identifiable early enough in the labour to allow transport to hospital from the home.

[Lindseyw]

The root of the problem isn't pay, certainly not for doctors who are over paid.

 

Where on earth have you got this tripe from ??

Overpaid indeed ?

 

 

On the subject of double shifts, if you choose to be a midwife then you should expect not to go home until the woman that you started working with has given birth even if that means 24 hours.

 

I'd like to see you do it - why should they stay on a shift for 24hrs ? How can anyone expect them to ?

[scoop]

I'd like to see you do it - why should they stay on a shift for 24hrs ? How can anyone expect them to ?

 

Also illegal I would have thought, not to mention dangerous for the mother and child in the care of a midwife who has been at work for such a length of time.

[KenH]

.

I agree that the whole NHS needs a shake up but to make the normal place to give birth at home would put a lot of babies at risk.

 

My argument isn't that women shouldn't have babies in hospital, they should have babies whereever they want. At the moment the system is that hospitals (a place for sick people) are considered the normal place then then everyone has a fight to get anything different, and particularly to get support while doing so. If the expectation was changed completely so that the normal place was outside of hospital, in birth csntres or homes, then the system would be turned on its head. This means that midwifes would deal with far more happy people in healthier environments. It also means that the system would have to cope with far more flexible hours from the midwifes as they worked around the woman not the shift system.

 

Here is an overview of the salaries that doctors get:-

 

The most junior doctors straight from university gets £20,741 in the first year and £25,882 in the second. In specialist training they get from £29,000 to £44,000.

 

In addition they get extra banding supplement depending on the type of work they carry out, the hours and any unsocial times. This banding supplment is 20-80% of that basic salary. The most common supplement is 50% of the basic salary. The average salary for a hospital doctor 5 years from graduating is £48,000.

 

There are then a number of scales for doctors who has completed this initial training which take them all the way up to a consultants salary. The basic salary for a consultant ranges from £70,000 to £94,000 depending on the numbers of years as a consultant. Because it is based on years this means they automatically keep getting paid more.

 

Consultants have extra tiny bits of cash they may get. For example, there are national and local Clinical Excellence Awards which range from £2,800 to £33,000 for local awards and £33,000 to £72,000 for national awards. There is an extra payment of between 1% and 8% for being on call at times. There are retention and recruitment bonuses of up to 30%.

[Lindseyw]

 

Here is an overview of the salaries that doctors get:-

 

The most junior doctors straight from university gets £20,741 in the first year and £25,882 in the second. In specialist training they get from £29,000 to £44,000.

 

In addition they get extra banding supplement depending on the type of work they carry out, the hours and any unsocial times. This banding supplment is 20-80% of that basic salary. The most common supplement is 50% of the basic salary. The average salary for a hospital doctor 5 years from graduating is £48,000.

 

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Damn right - thats not overpaid - thats fair. They work bloody hard to get that far & exceptionally long hours.

 

IMO they deserve every penny.