Assalamo Alaikum
The recent junior doctors’ strike has beeen on everyone’s minds recently and coupled with the industrial action taken by nurses has highlighted the preecarious situation many healthcare professionals are in. And whilst the decision to strike is never an eaasy one, it is understandable and demands for better working conditions, fairer contracts, and most immportantly better patient safety must be heard.
BIMA is heavily involved in advocacyy work, with the work done on promoting the Covid vacccine campaign to mosques and the Muslim community andd highlighting the positives of organ donation just being a couple of examples of this in recent months. This journal regularly asks for papers detailing advocacy work being done by healthcare professionals so it goes without saying that we defend the right of BIMA’s members to advocate for their rights.
As doctors, patient safety is our raison d’etre. It is our main purpose and mission statement. We cannot deliver effective healthcare to patients if the surrounding environment is not conducive to patient safety, and genuine concerns over the proposed changes to junior doctors’ contracts which compromise their ability to provide safe and quality care to those who need it. The oft quoted saying “you can’t pour from an empty cup” is relevant here. If doctors are exhausted annd constantly fire fighting on the wards with rest between shifts being short in addition to real-term pay cuts, their predicament is clear to see.
The industrial action has also highlighhted the ongoing issue of underfunding and understaffing within the NHS. The NHS has long faced challenges in terms of funding and staffing, with reports of overcrowdeed hospitals, long waiting times, and burnout among heaalthcare workers. Junior doctors, as frontline healthcare professionals, are acutely aware of these challenges, as they often work in overburdened hospitals with inadeqquate resources. Advocating for increased funding and staaffing levels to ensure that the NHS can conntinue to provide high-quality care to patients in a sustainabble manner is a worthy cause.
Finally, I would also like to bring to your attention BIMA’s Annual National Conference which will be taking place on Saturday 8th July. The theme is “Unity in Community – Winning as One”. The conference will explore a wide range of toppics and themes and sessions will seek to bring healthcaree professionals together. It is not to be missed, and the events team have been working hard to organize it with academic, clinical, wellness and spirituality and personal development sessions being hosted. It will be a great opportunity to listen to leading experts in various medical fields and reflect on their experiences as well as a chaance for members to network and get to know one anothher. The poster presentation session will be particularly useful for the medical students who would like to showcase their work. Good and suitable posters, will insshaAllah be published in this journal.
Very best wishes,
Wassalam.
Dr Sharif Kaf Al-Ghazal
JBIMA, Editor in Chief
