Resident Physicians in the UK to Launch Five Consecutive Day Walkout in November
Medical professionals in England are set to stage a five-day strike next month, due to disputes regarding jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) stated that junior physicians will strike for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am to November 19 at 7am.
Resident doctors, who constitute about half of all doctors in the NHS, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee stated, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with officials, pressing the health secretary to end the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We talked with the government in good faith, keen for the health secretary to understand that a agreement including options to slowly restore the cuts to pay over several years, giving recent graduates a raise of only £1 per hour for the coming 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 physicians leaving the NHS.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Junior physicians have as much as eight years of experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in primary care.
Further information are expected soon.
