Why aren't doctors surgeries open at weekends?

We live in a funny old country. Think about it. A few years ago, we decided to add to our stresses and woes by keeping shops open at weekends. This meant that every day become like a weekday - everyone rushing to work, fretting like mad and clogging up the roads. The days of chilling out and putting your feet up for a few hours were over. Well and truly over. So - nowadays we can buy what we want a weekends - food, drink, clothing, household appliances, you name it. But what about if we become life-threateningly ill? What about if one of us contracts an illness and urgently needs a doctor? Oh no, if that's the case, we have to sit tight until Monday and risk suffering in agony or infecting others or even dying in the meantime. So what does this peculiar choice of priorities tell us? Well, the message is - if you suddenly get a pounding headache when, unknown to yourself, you have a brain tumour the size of a rugby ball, it doesn't matter if you might only have 48 hours to live, because, hell, you can get yourself a bunch of bananas from Tesco or a nice new shirt from Primark. I mean WTF?? Most doctors earn up to �200,000 p.a. - you'd have the thought the very least they could do is work out some kind of shift pattern so that the surgeries are kept open at weekends.