Junior Physicians in the UK to Launch Five-Day Strike Next Month
Medical professionals in the UK are set to stage a five consecutive day strike in November, in protest over jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The BMA announced that junior physicians will strike for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Resident doctors, who constitute about half of all doctors in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the government.
Causes of the Walkout
Dr Jack Fletcher commented, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have been negotiating for the past week with government, 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 struggling to find jobs, 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, hoping the health secretary to see that a agreement including options to slowly restore the pay reductions over several years, giving recent graduates a pay increase of only £1 per hour for the next four years.”
“We hoped the authorities would recognize that our demands are not just fair but are in the interest of the community and our those we treat and would also help prevent our doctors leaving the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have as much as eight years of experience working as a hospital doctor, based on their field, or as many as three years in primary care.
More details will follow shortly.
