Resident Doctors in England to Stage Five-Day Strike Next Month
Doctors in the UK are set to stage a five-day walkout next month, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The 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 about half of all doctors in the National Health Service, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the government.
Causes of the Walkout
Dr Jack Fletcher commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, pressing the health minister to resolve the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their talents being unused whilst millions of patients endure long waits for care and hospital shifts remain vacant. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the minister to understand that a deal offering solutions to gradually reverse 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 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 stop our doctors departing from the health service.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Junior physicians have as much as eight years of experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in primary care.
More details are expected soon.
