Resident Doctors in England to Launch Five-Day Strike Next Month
Doctors in the UK are set to begin a five-day strike in November, due to disputes regarding jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that junior physicians will walk out for five consecutive days from November 14 at 7am to November 19 at 7am.
Junior physicians, who make up nearly 50% 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 officials, pressing the health secretary to end the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“Our survey reveals 50% of second-year physicians in England are facing unemployment, 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 talked with the government in good faith, hoping the minister to see that a agreement offering solutions to slowly restore the pay reductions over several years, providing recent graduates a raise of only £1 per hour for the next four years.”
“We trusted the authorities would see that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the public and our those we treat and would also help stop our doctors departing from the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in primary care.
More details are expected shortly.
