• Candelestine@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Something tangential I’ve been wondering…

    Are the profession of doctors ethically allowed to go on strike? People would die if they did. Probably lots.

    • pugsnroses77@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      ive heard of ideas of nurses/doctors to strike by continuing to provide care but just not collecting payment/doing insurance paperwork

    • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      There are other tactics that can be used but striking isn’t out of the question. I can’t speak for doctors specifically but other hospital staff can and have gone on strike before, with good success. There was just a healthcare strike at Kaiser permanente hospitals a few weeks ago. They fired a “warning shot” of sorts by striking for 3 days and threatening to strike again for as long as needed if their demands weren’t met.

      Ethically, I personally don’t see a problem with it. By not allowing medical staff to strike you’re basically telling them that their life is worth less than someone else’s because they chose to pursue a public service. Because they had the gall to want to help people, they need to accept deplorable working conditions (that absolutely effect patient outcomes and result in death), poor pay, and mistreatment. That trying to make their lives and places of work better means they’re bad people, undeserving of basic human dignity

    • Aviandelight @mander.xyz
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      1 year ago

      There are ways to strike while keeping the bare minimum of staffing for critical care units. The problem is that most American healthcare systems are already staffed inadequately to the point that it would make no difference in care if there was a strike. It’s not a coincidence that the main sticking point of the Kaiser strike was to force Kaiser to increase staffing levels for patient safety.

    • MelonYellow@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Idk about doctors, because it’s more nurses and other staff that strike. But speaking for nursing, we usually give the employer advanced notice so they can hire travelers (scabs, but also a necessity so you can’t really hate) to work during the strike dates. /Cue the delicious scramble and shitshow lol.

      Also sometimes there’s an agreement to provide X number of employees who are allowed to cross the picket line (we want to strike, but not the bad optics of “selfish nurses killing their patients”).