Resident Physicians in the UK to Launch Five-Day Strike Next Month
Medical professionals in England are set to begin a five consecutive day walkout in November, in protest over jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The BMA announced that resident doctors will strike for five consecutive days from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who constitute nearly 50% of all doctors in the National Health Service, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have spent the last week in talks with officials, urging the health minister to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in the UK are facing unemployment, their talents being unused whilst countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment 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 offering solutions to gradually reverse the cuts to pay over several years, providing recent graduates a raise of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the government would see that our demands are not just fair but are in the interest of the community and our patients and would also help prevent our physicians leaving the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
Junior physicians have as much as eight years of experience practicing in hospitals, based on their field, or as many as three years in general practice.
More details are expected soon.
