Junior doctors continue to fight on

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A junior doctor strikes outside King's College hospital A&E on 27 April 2016 (Getty)

The Royal College of Physicians report into the state of the NHS vindicates what we junior doctors have been saying from the very beginning of our battle with Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt (“Worn out and stressed doctors putting patients at risk, report warns”, Wednesday 21 September).

The Conservative Party’s 2015 manifesto pledge to deliver a “truly seven-day NHS” was uncosted, unfunded and based on a series of false assumptions. Chief amongst these was a belief that the current NHS workforce is working under capacity. The report exposes this as hopelessly misinformed and it is this fact that is the crux of the bitter contract dispute.

We junior doctors work extra unpaid hours on a daily basis – on average this adds up to five unpaid weeks of work every year. Shift patterns further reduce our time for family and life’s other social activities in the evening and at weekends. The truth is, we are already working at the limit.

By forcing the current workforce onto rotas with extra unsocial hours, and imposing a rejected contract that allows this to happen, Hunt will force many of us over the edge. The rota gaps that are already present (and which will already be exacerbated as an inherent result of the contract’s clauses), will widen to catastrophic proportions as more and more of us find that we cannot cope. There are no extra doctors to fill these gaps.

We will continue to fight for a safe contract for our patients and for the future of the NHS.

The Junior Doctors’ Alliance – Dr James Crane, Dr Fionna Martin, Dr Aislinn Macklin-Doherty, Dr Julia Patterson, Dr Mona Kamal, Mr Rishi Dhir, Dr Moosa Quereshi, Dr Benjamin Janaway

The refugee crisis has no end in sight

I applaud The Independent for drawing attention to the predicament of refugees in the Calais Jungle. Britain’s response to the refugee crisis is lamentable. Britain has received a tiny fraction of what poor countries such as Jordan and Lebanon have received over the past few years. The burden of refugees cannot fall squarely on countries closest to the epicentre of global conflicts.

Munjed Farid Al Qutob

Jordan

I am appalled and saddened when I read about the plight of refugees, risking everything to reach Europe and escape from war and terror. How tragic to end up in Calais where things seem far from safe, perhaps now even worse with the claims of sexual abuse.

In all of this misery and chaos, there is one aspect I don't understand and that is how children are found abandoned and alone in a camp. I suspect that some have lost their family on the journey, and perhaps some have travelled with friends. But as a parent I cannot conceive of sending young children or teenagers alone on such a perilous journey. I don't think I could bear not knowing if they were safe, I would need to be with them.

Perhaps throughout history parents have been forced to make such horrific choices in the hope of saving their children? What a terrible choice.

Denise Day

Address supplied

It's nice to hear from David Miliband, despite the fact that he loved the Labour party so much that he couldn't serve with Ed as leader. Not quite the Brownlee brother. But he has not been idle: he is head of the International Rescue Committee, which deals with the global refugee crisis. Any startlingly successfully results he’d like to share with us?

Beryl Wall

London

Astronomy or astrology

I would like to draw attention to a frequently made but important error in the Nasa article by Andrew Griffin. He stated that "The two announcements caused panic in people who are interested in astronomy...". No, it did not. People who are interested in astronomy (a science) will know about the precession of the equinoxes (to give the phenomenon its full name). I learned about it aged 11 back in the Sixties. I am sure that Mr Griffin meant there would be panic among those interested in astrology (a superstition) who typically have absolutely no idea of what is going on above our heads.

He repeats the error again later in the article stating that Nasa’s statement would not have “made much of a difference to modern astronomy”. The measurement and understanding of precession of the equinoxes is, in fact, of astronomical interest. Griffin, I believe, was trying to make the point that “modern” astrologers do not know nor care about this since they make up their own rules.

By the way, there was a similar mistake in an article on Stonehenge (22 August). By mixing and interchanging the words astronomy and astrology it gives the illusion of credibility to the latter as being something more than a foolish superstition.

David Theriault

London

Trump has a precursor

The nightmare of what could happen under a Trump presidency is already a fact in the Philippines. President Duterte's actions in a short time has alienated the world community, and taken the country into a blood bath of extrajudicial killings. Over the next few weeks the world can only hope that the people of the US will wake up to the fact that Trump's promises cannot be delivered and will not vote for a man who could only achieve his goals by going against the traditions and constitution of the US.

George D Lewis

Northamptonshire