The four-day strike by junior doctors across England will result in an estimated 350,000 appointments, including operations, being cancelled.
The action follows years of pay erosion and deteriorating working conditions in the health service. According to the British Medical Association (BMA), junior doctors’ pay has fallen by 26% in real terms over the past 15 years.
As hospital bosses expressed safety concerns and appointments were scrapped, the Guardian heard from patients concerned about how their health would be affected.
‘Is it going to get cancelled again?’
Rachel England, 49, had a surgery appointment scheduled for March at a hospital in Lancashire to operate on her elbow. It was cancelled because of the first wave of junior doctors’ strikes last month, and rescheduled for this Thursday. This time, she says she was told by the hospital that the surgery would be moved to May.
England, who works at a day service for autistic people in Blackpool, has suffered from chronic pain after she broke her elbow more than a decade ago, and has had several operations on it.
She says the pain is getting worse. “I’m in constant pain and am restricted with my movement. My partner has to help more at home – little things such as struggling with [using] a knife. I end up wearing my food the majority of the time because of hand spasms. I can’t lift a coffee cup with my right hand.
“I’m worried, is it going to get cancelled again? It’s affecting my mental health. I’m not sleeping properly, I’m really anxious – it’s horrible.”
‘It was terrifying because my child is really not well’
When Emma*, 43, heard of the strikes, she was immediately concerned that her 12-year-old son’s heart operation would be postponed. She says he has been on the waiting list since November.
Last week, she received a phone call from the hospital in London confirming that the surgery to replace his heart valves, which had been due to be held on Thursday, would be postponed by two weeks. “It was terrifying because my child is really not well.”
Her son was born with aortic stenosis, and over the last year, has been suffering a series of episodes: headaches, fainting, chest pains. He has become weaker in recent months, and is now struggling to walk more than a few metres and has been off school in recent weeks.
“The whole year since then was very hard for us, when you see your child being unwell all the time,” says Emma, who works in education. “He can’t go back to school because he can’t walk.”
“We are not religious, but I actually prayed for him to be well enough to wait until the next operation date,” she says. “I just hope that he will be able to stay in this condition as he is today and not get worse. It’s very stressful for the whole family.
“He was very disappointed. He is trying to think about something else and not to worry about it. It’s hard but what can we do?”
‘I am so scared and feel very alone’
Last Monday, Anne, a designer in her late 40s, went to a clinic in London to have a lump in her breast checked. After a mammogram, a consultation with a radiologist, a second 3D mammogram, and two biopsies that day, she was told cancer was suspected.
But when she went to schedule an appointment to receive her full biopsy results and discuss next steps, she says the reception staff were unable to give her a date, saying there were none available because of the strike. Anne was told to go home and wait for a call.
“I’m sitting at home, broken, petrified about what comes next,” she says. “When will I be seen? Will my treatment be stalled by the next set of strikes? How will I work? Am I going to die? I support the strikes but I am so scared and feel very alone. Why won’t our government do anything?”
“Being given scraps of info and then left hanging seems incredibly cruel,” she says. “The waiting to find out if the cancer has spread is causing the worst sort of anxiety for myself and my partner. I’m kicking myself for not getting the biopsy done privately. It’s expensive – but at least now I’d know.”
*Name has been changed
