Resident Doctors in England to Stage Five-Day Strike Next Month
Medical professionals in the UK are set to begin a five-day walkout in November, in protest over jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that resident doctors will walk out for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who constitute about half of all medical staff in the NHS, are taking this action after unsuccessful talks with the government.
Causes of the Walkout
Dr Jack Fletcher stated, “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 crisis of doctors going unemployed.”
“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in the UK are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the health secretary to see that a deal including options to gradually reverse the pay reductions over a number of years, giving newly trained doctors a pay increase of only £1 per hour for the next four years.”
“We trusted the authorities would see that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the public and our those we treat and would also help stop our doctors departing from the health service.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Resident doctors 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.
