From: "Mark Pasola" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2004 10:09 PM
Subject: Re: The cost of medicine > spat
I'm sorry but I disagree. Whatever they were doing behind the scenes,
it was invisible until this weekend. Perception matters.
The BMA's public contribution is also too late in my opinion - Labour
MPs have already decided how to vote. More influence would have been
had an earlier stage of the debate.
Mark
The fact that you haven't seen anything doesn't mean that there wasn't
anything going on. The BMA have been going at this since student loans were
introduced and when course fees came along it went up a notch. There has
been press coverage as Midge points out. But however you look at it, this is
not a very sexy subject for newspapers because there's not much to say apart
from that that people of modest means will be discouraged from sending their
children to medical school.
Or will they? Maybe T Blair is right and if anyone can afford to pay back
their expensive undergrad education (what is it, must be quarter of a
million by now, they used to quote £100k when I were a lad) it is medical
students who by the time they are fully trained will be earning salaries of
by then £100,000 a year , at the expense of the taxpayer. I don't believe
Joe Public cares about or even believes in equality of opportunity of entry
to medical school nor whether his doctors come from working class
backgrounds. Until there is a shortage of students going to medical school
I don't think they will bother and the story doesn't sell newspapers. The
reason they are glued to it right now is not the argument about doctors but
whether Tony is going to get beaten in a vote. Which he won't because Labour
MPs are going to be like GPs and huff and puff but vote yes like they have
so many time before.
I know you're sore about the new contract and so am I. There was some
coverage of the adverse effects of the new contract early last year and some
MPs were interested too, but it's difficult to sustain interest when the
whole world seems to be going in the other direction and frankly the 79% of
voters who voted yes killed this one stone dead.
I feel we are in sympathy about a lot of things but I can't blame the BMA
press office for lack of effort on this one.
--
Fay
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