Junior Physicians in the UK to Begin Five Consecutive Day Walkout Next Month
Medical professionals in England are set to begin a five-day strike in November, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that resident doctors will strike for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am to November 19 at 7am.
Resident doctors, who make up nearly 50% of all doctors in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the health department.
Causes of the Walkout
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee stated, “We did not want to reach this point. We have spent the last week in talks with government, urging the health secretary to resolve the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in the UK are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst countless individuals endure long waits for care and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We talked with the government in good faith, keen for the health secretary to understand that a deal offering solutions to slowly restore the pay reductions over several years, giving recent graduates a raise of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the government would recognize that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the public and our patients and would also help prevent our physicians departing from the NHS.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Junior physicians have as much as eight years of experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in primary care.
More details are expected soon.
