Resident Physicians in the UK to Begin Five Consecutive Day Walkout Next Month
Medical professionals in England are preparing to stage a five-day strike in November, in protest over jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The BMA stated that junior physicians will walk out for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who make up nearly 50% of all medical staff in the NHS, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the health department.
Reasons Behind the Strike
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 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 the UK are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals remain vacant. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We negotiated sincerely, keen for the minister to understand that a deal including options to gradually reverse the cuts to pay over several years, giving newly trained doctors a raise of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the authorities would see that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the community and our patients and would also help prevent our doctors departing from the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, based on their field, or as many as three years in general practice.
More details are expected shortly.
