Southampton junior doctor missed her grandmother's funeral for work

The doctor, who didn't want to be named, works at the general surgery department at Southampton General Hospital and was on strike with colleagues yesterday.

Standing on the picket line, she told the Echo how junior doctors across the country are having to sacrifice their personal lives for work reasons.

Junior doctor members of the British Medical Association started a 72-hour strike on Monday over pay and recruitment.

She said: "I didn't get to go to my grandmother's funeral because we didn't have the staff to support our ward. I watched her funeral on Zoom during my shift. 

"It is infuriating and frustrating because I don't know any single one of my colleagues who hasn't missed out on their other aspects of life. And everybody makes sacrifices in all different aspects of their lives in order to be here.

"But we do that because we care about what we're doing." 

Junior Doctors in Southampton go on a three-day strike over pay (Image: Newsquest)

She also said she is struggling with soaring childcare fees for her six-year-old son. 

She said: "I don't actually make any money on days that I have to get childcare. 

"The average babysitter wage in Southampton is £15 an hour. And the average junior doctor's wage is £14 an hour. 

"There's no support for childcare." 

Other junior doctors in the city who joined a picket line outside the General Hospital on Tremona Road also spoke of their struggles. 

Cameron Spence, 35, joined the start of the three-day strike.

Cameron Spence.  Cameron, a junior doctor in the radiology department, (Image: Newsquest)

Cameron, a junior doctor in the radiology department, says: "I’ve been working for the NHS since 2011, and year after year it’s getting harder. 

"It’s exhausting because everyone you see is so drained. 

"When I first started in the NHS ten years ago, you went to work with a smile on your face.

"But now people are kind of dreading coming into work, and you can see it on their faces.

"You don’t get the same kind of smiles in the corridor, and that’s the kind of thing that keeps you going when you work in such a huge organisation."

While the junior doctors are demanding a pay rise, they are also calling for safe staffing levels to ensure the safety of patients. 

Sam Abdelkarim (Image: Newsquest)

Sam Abdelkarim, an emergency medicine trainee, added: "I'm here today because I want to stand up for my patients.

"I'm working in A&E at the moment, and the situation as it is is untenable. 

"We have patients in queues, both waiting to come into the hospital and waiting to be seen by doctors. 

"The worst that is going to happen is patient harm. And we know the figures already.

"Hundreds of people die every week, and the system is just not working.

"It's not a great feeling going into work and seeing a 93-year-old patient in a corridor who has not been seen by a doctor for eight hours or so.

"It's not dignified, and that's what we're fighting for." 

Junior doctors strike over pay and working conditions (Image: Newsquest)

Steven Barclays, the Health Secretary has said it is “incredibly disappointing” that junior doctors have not called off the “hugely disruptive” three-day strike.

Writing in The Telegraph, Mr Barclay warned that "this presents a real risk to patient safety, which should pose difficult ethical dilemmas for our hard-working junior doctors".

He said the 35 per cent pay rise demanded by the union for junior doctors was “simply unaffordable”, “costing around an extra £2 billion to the taxpayer at a time when we’re making real progress on our promise to halve inflation”.