Junior Physicians in England to Launch Five-Day Walkout Next Month
Doctors in the UK are set to stage a five-day strike in November, in protest over jobs and pay.
Walkout Information
The BMA announced that junior physicians will strike for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Resident doctors, who constitute about half of all doctors in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after unsuccessful talks with the government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with officials, urging the health minister to end the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their talents being unused whilst millions of patients 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 minister to see that a deal including options to slowly restore the pay reductions over a number of years, providing recent graduates a raise of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”
“We trusted the government would see that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the community and our those we treat and would also help prevent our doctors leaving the health service.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Junior physicians have as much as eight years of experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in primary care.
Further information are expected shortly.
