Just Imagine

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis

Thursday October 06, 2005 04:36

by Gaia Charis

A ten point visualisation exercise for the development and training of healthcare professionals

Just imagine that when you go into work tomorrow a new contract of employment is lying on your desk. You didn’t know that your terms of employment were being changed and it states very clearly at the top that this new contract is non-negotiable

Just imagine that your new terms of employment will be as follows:

1. You will now be required to work 365 days per year.

2. Your working day will average 18 hours but you must be on call 24 hours per day.

3. You will have no statutory right to holidays, tea breaks or meal breaks.

4. Your pay is to be reduced to the level of statutory State benefits and will be non-negotiable.

5. Your personal and/or professional or academic skills will not be recognised or rewarded in any way.

6. You have no right of redress regarding this contract.

7. It will take effect immediately.

8. There will be no effective help available to you no matter how difficult you find it
meet the terms of your new contract.

9. This new contract is to be managed by a conglomerate of State departments and their ancillary bodies. Hereinafter, this conglomerate will be referred to as ‘The System.’ Those within ‘The System’ will retain all statutory employment rights such as holidays, appropriate rates of pay, etc.

10. The employment of those within ‘The System’ is entirely dependent on the existence of those, such as yourself, who are henceforth permanently under the auspices, terms and conditions of the non-negotiable minimum contract.

Just imagine that you now find that it is frequently extremely difficult to access and obtain even the minimal rights, renumerations and resources to which you are entitled under your new contract.

Just imagine that when you try to do so you encounter delays, obstructions and seemingly interminable prevarications from those who manage your new contract.

Just imagine that you have no recognised Trade Union to assist you in these difficulties.

Just imagine that if you attempt to question or highlight these practices or are in any way critical of them your new contract will be suffixed with definitions taken from an approved systematic list e.g. ‘troublemaker’, ‘difficult’, ‘awkward’, ‘ungrateful’, etc.

The above visualisation exercise is best undertaken alone, and in a state of extreme exhaustion, preferably in the absence of any adequate financial resources.
Candidates displaying appropriate levels of empathy may be awarded with the approved certificate…

‘Imagining I am a Full-time Carer – Level 1.’

Level 2 training is available on application. This is a two part course. Module 1 is based on a field work placement and covers projects such as managing on a pittance, defying sleep deprivation and practical excrement management.
Module 2 is theoretical in content, challenging the more able candidates with a range of intellectual and philosophical issues such as the concept of endless patience, the Tao of incontinence laundry and getting in touch with one’s Inner Saint.

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Comments (2 of 2)

Good thought-provoking article

by Anthony

Fri Oct 07, 2005 01:04

So good that I didn't give it enough thought at first and was thrown off the track by the use of the word "professionals".

With the increasing trend towards neo-liberalism in the provision of health care and the rise in "precarity", I'm more cynical than I used to be. Workers at the bottom of the health care "industry" have never had it very good. Not so long ago, the job of cleaning St Mary's Hospital in the Phoenix Park was being out-sourced to dodgy agencies who paid their workers (mostly women with families to feed) with cheques that bounced.

However the author above was making a different, more subtle point.

Interesting Radio Interview

by Miriam Cotton

Mon Oct 10, 2005 11:39

Proposal to extend tax credits for child rearing more equitably. Article here:

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=72387

Includes link to radio interview with Curam - a parents network who are lobbying on this issue:

http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/2005.9.29.c_ram.mp3

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Comments (2 of 2)