Should doctors strike?
Is it ethical for doctors to go on strike, potentially putting their patients at risk of getting inadequate treatment?
As the BBC reports, ministers and junior doctors are currently “locked in a dispute.” One possible outcome of this disagreement is a physicians’ strike, which raises a number of tricky ethical questions. But before we get into those questions, it might be helpful to take a look at a quick sketch of what the problem is all about (from the BBC article):
Junior doctors’ leaders are objecting to the prospect of a new contract. The government has described the current arrangements as ‘outdated’ and ‘unfair,’ pointing out they were introduced in the 1990s. Ministers drew up plans to change the contract in 2012, but talks broke down last year. The government has indicated it will impose the new contract next year in England. The BMA has responded by initiating the industrial action process. …
The latest information provided by the government, which is the most detailed so far, includes an 11% rise in basic pay for doctors. But that comes at a price. Other elements of the pay package are being curbed.
The prospect of a strike appears to be firmly on the table: “Doctors can take strike action but only if it affects non-emergency care. The last time this happened was during [a] pensions dispute in 2012, but that was the first time such action had been taken for almost 40 years. Doctors still attend work – so they are ready for urgent and emergency cases.”
The Journal of Medical Ethics has tackled this issue before. Writing for the journal in 2013, John Park and Scott Murray gave an analysis of the 2012 “pensions dispute” just mentioned.
Last year in June, British doctors went on strike for the first time since 1975. Amidst a global economic downturn and with many health systems struggling with reduced finances, around the world the issue of public health workers going on strike is a very real one. Almost all doctors will agree that we should always follow the law, but often the law is unclear or does not cover a particular case. Here we must appeal to ethical discussion.
The General Medical Council, in its key guidance document for practising doctors … claims that ‘Good doctors make the care of their patients their first concern.’ Is this true? And if so, how is this relevant to the issue of striking? One year on since the events, we carefully reflect and argue whether it was right for doctors to pursue strike action, and call for greater discussion of ethical issues such as the recent strikes, particularly among younger members of the profession.
In light of the current turmoil, the Journal of Medical Ethics welcomes submissions on the ethics of physicians striking, including papers which build on, critique, or respond to the work of Park and Murray. Their 2013 paper can be accessed here. As Associate Editor Dominic Wilkinson stated in an interview:
In their submissions, authors should focus on ethical questions and put their discussion in the context of ongoing international debate and existing literature. Possible questions include, for example: what is a fair level of remuneration for public sector healthcare workers, including doctors? Should all doctors be paid equally? Should antisocial hours be rewarded financially? In a financially constrained environment, should doctors’ pay go down in order to protect funding for health care provision?
Papers can be submitted to the Journal of Medical Ethics here. Author instructions are here.
The Journal of Medical Ethics remains the top-ranked journal in bioethics for 2015 according to Google Scholar Metrics, with an impact factor of 1.511 and an h5-index of 28. We look forward to seeing your submissions.
Check out the current issue by clicking here.