Sick Note

"Four weeks off sick....for medics"

This was the headline that The Sun decided to go with today. Simple and to the point! Us 'medics' have four weeks off sick each year (on average). How dare we?!

"AMBULANCE staff averaged more than FOUR WEEKS’ sick leave each last year, shock statistics revealed yesterday.

The figure of 22.6 days is FIVE TIMES the norm for UK workers.

In all 405,000 days were lost among 17,922 qualified staff, NHS Information Centre data shows.

East Midlands Ambulance Service had the highest sickness rate of all with 6.73 per cent of working hours lost.

NHS sources said many paramedics took time off for stress after being forced to deal with traumatic incidents.

Jonathan Fox of the ambulance workers’ union said they faced soaring call-outs and a pay freeze. He added: “It’s a culture of take, take with very little understanding.”

Overall, NHS staff were ill for 15.56million days — an average of 15 days each. That far exceeds the 4.5 days national average.

Hospital doctors took the fewest sickies — an average of 4.2 days.

The Health Department wants to cut sick days by a third by March to save £555million a year."

by Emily Ashton, Journalist

Dear Emily Ashton

What an insightful, well researched, utterly pointless article! Would it not be an idea to ask WHY?! WHY is our sick leave five times the national average? WHY are we going off with stress? These SHOCKING statistics about the NASTY NHS workers must mean we are a bunch of lazy money grabbers surely? Why else publish the article? I wonder what kind of hours you, the writer of this scholary article, work? I wonder what you see on a day-to-day basis? I wonder what physical exertion your body is put through? I wonder how many night shifts you do? I wonder how many times you have been punched, kicked, spat at, beaten, sworn at, vomited over and pissed on? I wonder how many dead babies you have held in the last 12 months?

Guess what Emily Ashton; in the past 12 months I have had almost 11 weeks off work! Write about that. Write about how naughty I am. Write about how I am a scourge on the NHS budget. Write about what a SHOCKING amount of time off this really is! I must add though, when you do, can you also write about the guy who beat me and four 999 colleagues over the head with a fence post? Make sure you highlight how many bones were broken. In fact, while you are on that subject, why not write about every single member of the NHS who has had time off after being physically assaulted by the drunken taxpayer. They do pay our wages after all eh?!

Once you have finished writing about the broken bones and abuse, why not write a little paragraph about shift work?

Why not tell everyone about the 12 hour shifts we do? Why not discuss the changing from early shifts to night shifts, every single week? Why not talk about 70-80 hour weeks we do? Why not talk about doing all of those shifts without a break or a hot meal? Then if you could highlight that we do all of those hours around SICK PEOPLE! Yes, people sometimes call ambulances because they are ill. They have infections, contagious diseases; they cough, vomit, and they spit. Why not talk about the NHS workers who have been off sick after being exposed to HIV blood? Wouldn't that stress you out?

Talking of stress, why not write a list of what we all see on a day to day basis? Would this not affect you?:

Seeing a dead 7 year old in a bath
Delivering a full term dead baby
Delivering a 21 week old foetus
Trying to resuscitate an 18 year old who'd fallen 4 storeys
Seeing a family of 4 dead in a car
Seeing our elderly neglected
Losing count of the number of dead bodies you've seen
Seeing bones sticking out of limbs
Watching a teenager bleed to dead after being stabbed.
Finding a desperate soul hanging in front of you.

Would any of this keep you awake at night? Would it stress you out? Maybe not, maybe you're thick skinned.

I thought I had you there! How about after a 70 hour week, with little sleep, holding a dead baby and being assaulted at least once, you would also then be expected to carry a 30 stone patient down the stairs, oh and wait, there are some stairs to go up too?! Now carry all 10 patients for that one shift, whilst tired, having not eaten, having not had a break? Had enough yet? No? Good because luckily you only have half a day off and then you are back on, for an early shift, after a run of five 12 hour nights.

I think only 4 weeks off is a bloody miracle. Sure, there are a few who take the piss and abuse the system, but there are people in every walk of life that do that. I bet there are even people going around calling themselves journalists.....write about that scandal. Perhaps instead of berating us for the SHOCKING amount of sick leave, you should look at why and write an article about THAT instead. Maybe the Department of Health should look at your findings on that, before trying to cut sick leave by a third. Oh, one more thing, we do all of the above for less than £10 an hour. Living the dream.

Lots of love, from your biggest fan