Sir, - Dr P.K Plunkett must be warmly complimented for his well written letter on junior doctors' working hours (June 2nd) for it correctly addresses the nonsenses that are used to explain the exploitation of this vulnerable part of our society.
I qualified in 1986, often working over 120 hours a week (there are only 168 hours in a week) and was told this was a necessary part of my training. I well remember the continual exposure to drunks, joy-riders, drug addicts, contaminated blood and needle-stick injuries as part of the accepted normality with no thanks for my exposure. I even remember doing an emergency appendectomy and realising that the crisps and Coke I shared after the operation cost me more than the State had paid me for my work.
In that year I had enough of the system and went to New Zealand where a 45-hour working week was the legal limit. Did my training suffer? Of course not. In fact, because of the hands-on approach to teaching by the consultants there, my experience down under is one of the few things I remember about my early training years.
Like Dr Plunkett I say: "Poppycock!" All the excuses are just a roundabout way of exploiting young doctors and getting a health system on the cheap.
As with Dublin's litter and taxi problems, shame on you so-called politicians. - Yours, etc., Dr Patrick J. Treacy,
The Bray Family Practice, Meath Road, Bray, Co Wicklow.
