Junior Physicians in the UK to Launch Five-Day Strike Next Month
Medical professionals in the UK are set to stage a five-day strike in November, in protest over jobs and pay.
Walkout Information
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that resident doctors will walk out for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Junior physicians, who constitute about half of all medical staff in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the government.
Causes of the Walkout
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with government, pressing the health secretary to resolve the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are facing unemployment, their talents being unused whilst millions of patients 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 understand that a agreement including options to slowly restore the pay reductions over several years, providing newly trained doctors a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”
“We hoped the government would see that our asks are not just fair but are in the best interests of the public and our patients and would also help stop our physicians departing from the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
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 general practice.
More details will follow soon.
