Junior Physicians in England to Stage Five-Day Strike Next Month
Medical professionals in the UK are preparing to begin a five-day walkout in November, in protest over jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) stated that resident doctors will walk out for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who make up about half of all doctors in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, urging the health minister to resolve the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in England are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the health secretary to understand that a deal including options to gradually reverse the cuts to pay over a number of years, providing newly trained doctors a pay increase of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the authorities would see that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the public and our patients and would also help prevent our physicians departing from the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in general practice.
Further information are expected soon.
