The BMA’s  Humanitarian Fund provides NHS staff with grants of up to £3,000 to cover costs for things such as travel and accommodation while they work on projects improving healthcare in developing countries.

Three junior doctors explain how they put the money to good use working on projects ranging from working in a diabetes clinic in Boliva to sharing skills and experience with healthcare teams in Uganda:

As I listened to the Government minister going on about how the public sector pensions needed to be reined in to make them affordable, I felt betrayed. Under four years ago, the NHS Pension Scheme was renegotiated precisely to make it affordable into the future, and it still is affordable. And yet here was a minister giving the impression that our pension scheme is running on empty.

If I hear one more person use the phrase “gold plated public sector pension” I might just plate them. Yes, the returns on our pensions are good; at least, they are at the moment, though clearly the Government intends to put a stop to that. But that return is part compensation for the limitations of working in the public sector, and the expectation of lifelong service.

We’re generally a bright bunch, and had we not chosen to work for the NHS, we could have pursued a career in another profession such as law or finance, likely earning higher salaries. But here we are with our comfortable but not spectacular NHS salaries and the NHS pension there to provide us with the comfort of future financial security. Pensions are part of the overall pay package for your lifetime career… and we’re being given a particularly blatant pay cut.

As a junior doctor, I barely feel any affiliation to the hospital I work in as it is. My rootless feeling that I don’t belong to an employer, that I’m not really an employee, is only going to be exacerbated by the strong signal that the NHS no longer cares what happens to its workers when they are worn out and ready to retire.

The Government is seeing how far it can push us, or so it seems. Attacks on pensions, pay freezes and real-terms pay cuts, constant chatter about a subconsultant grade, threats to the CEA scheme… it goes on and on.

On pensions, their sums are badly worked-out, and their policy is driven as much by ideology and an attempt to tax our pensions as any desire to render the pension scheme affordable – not least because it already IS affordable, but they can’t admit that!

They’re gambling that doctors will not consider industrial action. On this, as with so much else, their judgement may well turn out to be flawed.

In this short interview former deputy chair of the BMA’s Junior Doctor Committee, Dr Ayesha Rahim, explains how the success of managing to secure £90,000 to improve hospital accommodation for junior doctors inspired her to get more involved with the BMA. She also talks about the team working, conflict resolution and negotiating skills she has picked up as a result of her involvement with the BMA.

The BMA is currently running elections for its junior doctor committee. If you are interested in find out more about becoming a representative on the BMA’s junior doctor committee you can find out more on the BMA website.