Junior Doctors in the UK to Launch Five-Day Strike Next Month
Doctors in England are preparing to begin a five-day strike next month, in protest over jobs and pay.
Walkout Information
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that resident doctors will strike for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Resident doctors, who make up nearly 50% of all doctors in the National Health Service, are taking this action after unsuccessful talks with the government.
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, pressing the health secretary to end the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“Our survey reveals 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals remain vacant. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the health secretary to understand that a deal including options to gradually reverse the pay reductions over several years, giving newly trained doctors a pay increase of just a pound an 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 those we treat and would also help prevent our physicians leaving the health service.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Junior physicians have as much as eight years of experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in primary care.
More details are expected shortly.
