\n<\/p>\n
While I totally disapprove, as I did last time, of the doctors\u2019 strike but completely support their demands and grievances, it is the prime minister\u2019s response which has made me write this letter (Keir Starmer gives resident doctors 48 hours to call off strike or lose training offer, 31 March). His threat of not creating extra training posts is shocking, inappropriate and impulsive. Though on the face of it it sounds like an innocuous response showing irritation, it is probably the most convincing evidence so far of his unfitness to govern among the litany of his other missteps.<\/p>\n
It has laid bare his government\u2019s lack of strategy and lack of sincerity. Does he understand that, by not creating training posts, he is not only going to harm doctors\u2019 careers, spoil thousands of young doctors\u2019 lives and deter others from adopting this noble and vital profession, but also harm the NHS, and thus patient care? The NHS is desperately understaffed. This shows that he never had any plan to increase the number of posts and it was agreed under pressure. He is clearly not a statesman, and if he is only capable of responding in this childlike manner, he could have threatened to freeze their pay or any such lowly response, but not one that is harmful.<\/p>\n
I urge doctors to call off the strike and urge our hapless prime minister to make yet another U-turn. The government must accept that doctors\u2019 demands are genuine, especially with regard to the impact on their lives, and doctors must understand the government\u2019s limitations with regard to finances. Both sides, please return to the negotiating table. <\/strong>Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While I totally disapprove, as I did last time, of the doctors\u2019 strike but completely support their demands and grievances, it is the prime minister\u2019s response which has made me write this letter (Keir Starmer gives resident doctors 48 hours to call off strike or lose training offer, 31 March). His threat of not creating<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[366,9728,8943,3001,2362,1162],"class_list":{"0":"post-47775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-doctors","9":"tag-grave","10":"tag-mistake","11":"tag-resident","12":"tag-starmers","13":"tag-threat"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Dr Mussaddaq Iqbal
<\/strong>Burnaston, Derbyshire<\/em><\/p>\n