Great timing

The European Empire's Working Time Directive limiting the amount of hours a person is allowed to work, regardless of whether they want to work longer hours or not, has come fully into force for junior doctors.

The argument for the Working Time Directive is that it gives workers important rights to prevent exploitation by employers. This isn't the case. The Working Time Directive, like most directives from the European Empire, contains obligations, not rights.

If the Working Time Directive was about giving rights to workers then it would give workers the legal right to refuse to work more than 48 hours a week but allow them to choose to do so if that is what they want to do. If it was about rights, it wouldn't make criminals out of workers that decide not to exercise their "rights".

The introduction of the Working Time Directive's enforced "rights" for junior doctors has a serious impact on the NHS. NHS Employers says that it could cost the NHS between and £143m and £293m and the lost hours will be the equivalent of up to 5,400 doctors. As NHS Employers operates only in England, presumably these disastrous figures only relate to England the the true cost of the directive's implementation in the UK's hostpials is currently unreported.

The strain on the NHS from swine flu is immense at the moment and when the seasonal flu starts its annual winter purge of the sick and elderly population, the NHS will come under even more pressure. This latest imposition from the European Empire couldn't have come at a worse time but then our imperial overlords are so far detatched from reality that it simply wouldn't occur to them that they're driving our health services to bankruptcy and severaly hindering their ability to serve the population.