I was very disappointed to read 'Paid lunch hour for doctors costs €38m' (News, 1 March), which demonstrates yet again the anti-doctor sentiment in this country.

Lines such as "one hour paid lunch break enjoyed by junior doctors" and intimation that doctors are creaming up to €11k grants every three years is completely biased. Junior doctors do not take lunch breaks; they don't have time. This grant is used to pay for courses, educational materials and exam fees: hardly cash-in-hand. All items must be claimed from the HSE by presenting a receipt. More than can be said for many politicians in this country. Also using phrases such as "mounting" overtime, and the bill for junior doctors has "soared", is intimating that doctors are involved in creating this level of overtime and using it to line their pockets.

The reason why doctors do so much overtime is because the HSE will not employee enough doctors to do the work required. Why is it the HSE leaves junior doctors out of the EU Working Time Directive? It is because they will not fund the hospitals and the staff adequately. Junior doctors do not choose to work over 100 hours per week. The base salary without overtime is approx €28/30k. The HSE intends to bring in measures where it will not pay hospital doctors for any overtime even when it knows a doctor will always stay on to see to the needs of their patients. They want to stop paying hospital doctors when they are on call overnight: in other words they want doctors to work without pay. What other area of the public service would be subjected to this, and how degrading to a caring profession for their efforts to be unrewarded.

E Horan,

Dublin 13.

dsheane@yahoo.com