Junior Physicians in England to Launch Five-Day Walkout Next Month
Doctors in the UK are preparing to stage a five consecutive day strike in November, in protest over jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The BMA announced that junior physicians will walk out for five consecutive days from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who make up about half of all medical staff in the National Health Service, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
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 secretary to resolve the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their talents being unused whilst countless individuals endure long waits for care 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 see 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 authorities would see that our demands are not just fair but are in the best interests of the public and our those we treat and would also help stop our doctors departing from the NHS.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in general practice.
More details will follow soon.
