Stop the press, fyi, LUAS drivers are considering strike

j.mcdrmd

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056743038

Drivers currently work 9 hour shifts in what is considered an extremely stressful working environment.

sam34

just a note to say that a few posters have reported this as being in the wrong forum. however, I think the op (who is a reasonably regular poster here) posted it here to draw attention to the working conditions that Luas drivers are considering striking over, while junior docs are still doing the (illegal) 32 hour or more marathon shifts.

correct me if I'm wrong op...

j.mcdrmd

sam34 wrote: »

just a note to say that a few posters have reported this as being in the wrong forum. however, I think the op (who is a reasonably regular poster here) posted it here to draw attention to the working conditions that Luas drivers are considering striking over, while junior docs are still doing the (illegal) 32 hour or more marathon shifts.

correct me if I'm wrong op...

You are correct Sam. Often workers in a sector get used to working conditions and pay. They become institutionalised. In the case of doctors the extremely long working hours compound the problem.

It is a good thing to look at the conditions and pay in other jobs. I posted the link here to give busy health care workers a quick glimpse of another jobs conditions and pay.

One of the posts has roster hours to show the anti social nature of the hours worked by LUAS drivers. I wish some health care workers would do the same on boards. Workers in other sectors do not have a clue about pay and conditions for health care workers. They do not understand terminology such as 1 in 3 and on call to the average person means relaxing but being available just in case there is an emergency. The general public need to know what is going on in hospitals. It affects them, they are the patients.

RobFowl

Conditions for NCHD's are bad but were even worse. A few years before I qualified overtime was paid at a minimal flat rate.
When i was an intern I remember working Christmas day for less than I was earning making pizza as a student.
Up to 2000 in the UK over time was paid at 50% of the normal rate up to 72 hours in total (after that you got nothing).
Hard to know why we put up with it TBH, just a sense that it was part of the process you had to go through (and a fear that if you rocked the boat the chances of career progression were minimal!!).
In this day and age Doctors are an easy target but NCHD's really have the worst of it in terms of working conditions. Senior doctors really should be saying and doing more to support them.....

opinion guy

RobFowl wrote: »

Conditions for NCHD's are bad but were even worse. A few years before I qualified overtime was paid at a minimal flat rate.
When i was an intern I remember working Christmas day for less than I was earning making pizza as a student.
Up to 2000 in the UK over time was paid at 50% of the normal rate up to 72 hours in total (after that you got nothing)

Why is it that old timers such as yourself (;)) always reduce conditions to money ??? Pay may be better now. But conditions most certainly are not. Most surgical regs and shos work on call weekends saturday morning to sunday evening for example. Thats bascially 60 hour shifts. And that is considered normal.

Doctors need to be prepared to lose some money. But only with the return of better hours, better training, and less bull**** time wasting tasks like having to do bloods, give 1st dose abx and so on

drzhivago

opinion guy wrote: »

Why is it that old timers such as yourself (;)) always reduce conditions to money ??? Pay may be better now. But conditions most certainly are not. Most surgical regs and shos work on call weekends saturday morning to sunday evening for example. Thats bascially 60 hour shifts. And that is considered normal.

Doctors need to be prepared to lose some money. But only with the return of better hours, better training, and less bull**** time wasting tasks like having to do bloods, give 1st dose abx and so on

sorry opinion guy this is old guy number 2

Conditions may not have improved much but they have not disimproved, the hours you describe is nota 60 hour shift, saturday to sunday evening is 36-28 tops

me and fowl had to do Friday morning - Monday evening weekends 1/3, i am not saying that is right - it wasnt right then and it isnt right now BUT you guys need to get on to NERA about this and get them to sort it

opinion guy

drzhivago wrote: »

sorry opinion guy this is old guy number 2

Conditions may not have improved much but they have not disimproved, the hours you describe is nota 60 hour shift, saturday to sunday evening is 36-28 tops

me and fowl had to do Friday morning - Monday evening weekends 1/3, i am not saying that is right - it wasnt right then and it isnt right now BUT you guys need to get on to NERA about this and get them to sort it

Oh it doesn't affect me, thank Christ, - but I take your point.

But just to pick up a point - the surgeons, at least the ones I know, now do sat morn to monday evening so it is roughly 60 hours. As do some cardiology regs I know. I've heard of circumstances where people have done 5 days without a break - I think its best I don't give specifics on here (but staffing shortages type stuff were at play

But here is a question - is the workload the same as it was when you guys were doing it ?? I recall a cardiology consultant once telling me that when he was doing call back in the day they used to take a break on call and head across to the pub for a drink or two before going to see some more patients. lol.....now I know that wasn't the norm....but I do wonder how much has the job changed since then - there is more to know about each person - more tests, more results, more details, more things to organise....etc etc (bascially the scope for mistakes is wider because there are more things to go wrong). Also when exactly did docs start doing bloods and first dose antibiotics etc?? My chats with some real old-timers :pac: lead me to believe this wasn't always the case and crept in over time largely secondarily to nursing unions using these things as bargaining points during negotiations over pay. Did you have to do these things in your days as a junior ?

drzhivago

opinion guy wrote: »

Oh it doesn't affect me, thank Christ, - but I take your point.

But just to pick up a point - the surgeons, at least the ones I know, now do sat morn to monday evening so it is roughly 60 hours. As do some cardiology regs I know. I've heard of circumstances where people have done 5 days without a break - I think its best I don't give specifics on here (but staffing shortages type stuff were at play

But here is a question - is the workload the same as it was when you guys were doing it ?? I recall a cardiology consultant once telling me that when he was doing call back in the day they used to take a break on call and head across to the pub for a drink or two before going to see some more patients. lol.....now I know that wasn't the norm....but I do wonder how much has the job changed since then - there is more to know about each person - more tests, more results, more details, more things to organise....etc etc. Also when exactly did docs start doing bloods and first dose antibiotics etc?? My chats with some real old-timers :pac: lead me to believe this wasn't always the case and crept in over time largely secondarily to nursing unions using these things as bargaining points during negotiations over pay

When I was a student the obs reg would do on call in the pub across the road, since I started working that never happened

I think nowadays you guys do have more non-medical tasks and probably need to write more notes and cover more peoples asses at night, I also think you get called to a lot of families because it is convenient for them even if you know nothing about the patient which i think is unfair and bad practice that it is allowed to happen in a hospital. You are there for emergency cover and wont know the nuances of every patients care but some families expect a lot of info and that everyone on call should know all the info which is unrealistic

In my day it was the night sister that had to call the SHO on call and they would filter the calls, also nurses did do IVs and take bloods for some reason they didnt do ECGS though and as medical and surgical SHO that was a lot of time at nights using the old sucky ball ecg machines not the easy ones with the stickers

When I started in ED I was the only doc in the ED at night after 11pm but regularly there would be no new patients showing up after 2am until 7am so could sit down rest and snooze if quiet. think life is more 24 hours now

Realistically is there more to know about each person I am not sure, we were probably expected to do more procedures on our own and particularly at night

RobFowl

First dose AB's were there in my day as were bloods esp at the weekends.
ECG's were the interns job though we got to do pretty much as many or any
proceedures going.
I'd tend to agree we did longer hours but were probably less busy while on.
Sorry for focusing on the pay Opinion Guy but suppose thats the most concrete way our value is measured.
I think the days of on call in the pub were pretty much gone by the 90's, at least certainly never came accross it to any great degree.

drzhivago

RobFowl wrote: »

First dose AB's were there in my day as were bloods esp at the weekends.
ECG's were the interns job though we got to do pretty much as many or any
proceedures going.
I'd tend to agree we did longer hours but were probably less busy while on.
Sorry for focusing on the pay Opinion Guy but suppose thats the most concrete way our value is measured.
I think the days of on call in the pub were pretty much gone by the 90's, at least certainly never came accross it to any great degree.

Ah fowly old boy, the great phrase "get the intern to do it"

I was unlucky enough to work in a few hospitals with no interns so it was the SHO or the ONLY doctor in the hospital at nights job to do those things but it was realistic to expect some sleep, seeing how it is going that does not happen a lot nowadays

RobFowl

drzhivago wrote: »

Ah fowly old boy, the great phrase "get the intern to do it"

I was unlucky enough to work in a few hospitals with no interns so it was the SHO or the ONLY doctor in the hospital at nights job to do those things but it was realistic to expect some sleep, seeing how it is going that does not happen a lot nowadays

Get the intern to do it! Recall being asked to do a manual evacuation, said I'd never seen one before let alone done one, "now's your chance then, its an interns job"...
My last SHO job was one at an intern free zone , confirmed to me that hospital medicine was not my calling :rolleyes:

MrCreosote

Another one- some lorry drivers with an "unsafe" roster. Measly fine mind you, but at least the principle is upheld

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0912/1224323910442.html

j.mcdrmd

MrCreosote wrote: »

Another one- some lorry drivers with an "unsafe" roster. Measly fine mind you, but at least the principle is upheld

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0912/1224323910442.html

This bit is especially interesting:-

"A charge against the driver was struck out.

The work schedule was organised in such a way that the driver was unable to comply fully with the required weekly rest period."


Rules for work hours and rest periods are in this pdf.

http://www.rsa.ie/Documents/Tachograph_Enf/Drivers_Hours.pdf

The key requirements are that you must not drive:

Without a break for more than 4.5 hours. After driving for 4.5 hours, a break of at least 45 minutes is mandatory. You can distribute that break over the 4.5 hours.

For more than nine hours per day or 56 hours per week. This may be extended to 10 hours no more than twice during a week.

More than 90 hours in two consecutive weeks.

There are also strict regulations regarding the average working time and the amount of rest that must be taken daily and weekly.

j.mcdrmd

MrCreosote wrote: »

Another one- some lorry drivers with an "unsafe" roster. Measly fine mind you, but at least the principle is upheld

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0912/1224323910442.html

Another one, teachers conditions were addressed in the media here.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/education/2012/0925/1224324356349.html


A couple of points from it :-

" Under the new rules, new entrants will start at point 4 of the salary scale – €30,702 – but they will not be eligible for qualification allowances."

---

"They also have the option of being paid a pensionable allowance of €1,592 for supervision and substitution, which will bring their starting salary to €32,294. To qualify for this supervision and substitution allowance, new entrants will have to provide 12 additional hours a year over and above the existing requirement. Therefore a newly qualified teacher this year has a maximum earning capacity of €32,294 before tax, in contrast to the more than €39,000 that the class of 2010 earned in their first year.
These new teachers are second-class citizens in the new two-tier teaching profession.
It seems absurd that, in 2012, we could be facing a crisis in the form of an intergenerational struggle, with the younger teachers demanding equal pay for equal work, but at the moment it seems inevitable."

Questions:-

1. Who starts at point 1,2 or 3 on the scale if the lowest paid new staff start at point 4?

2. Imagine having the OPTION to get paid €1,592 PENSIONABLE to CHOOSE to work 12 hour extra A YEAR!

I just don't understand this.