The article:
http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/breaking-down-monopolies-in-the-medical-profession
I’ve just posted the following comment:
“The feminisation of the NHS over the past 30+ years deserves far more coverage in an article of this length. It costs some £250,000 – £500,000 to train a doctor, and 70% of medical students in the UK today are women. Compared with male doctors, female doctors are:
– more likely to quit the profession altogether
– more likely work part-time, whether or not they have children
– less likely to work in the most stressful disciplines e.g. A&E
– more likely to work in the least stressful disciplines e.g. general practise
– more likely to retire earlier
It’s been estimated that the NHS gets around half the number of working hours from the average female doctor over a working life, compared with the average male doctor. The inevitable collapse in the staffing capacity of the NHS has been ‘solved through recruiting a huge number of foreign doctors, many from poor countries which have paid for their training, and can ill afford their working abroad.
The bottom line? An ever more mediocre NHS run to suit women choosing work/life balance over work, and costing ever more for taxpayers to fund. The beneficiaries? A small number of women, many of whom wouldn’t have made it into medical schools on the grounds of merit. The losers? Patients (e.g. those unable to see a GP at the weekend) and taxpayers. By taxpayers we mean, of course, men mostly. Men pay 72% of the income tax collected in the UK, and women only 28%. As usual, men are funding both their own disadvantaging and the mediocrity of the public sector.
My political party may include in its 2015 general election manifesto a proposal that medical students be required to pay back the cost of their training once in work. With the average GP today earning £104,000 p.a. – outrageous remuneration given the hours GPs work, their job security, the absence of consequences for poor performance – paying back the cost of their training within a decade should be perfectly feasible.”
