Junior Physicians in the UK to Stage Five Consecutive Day Walkout in November
Medical professionals in England are preparing to stage a five consecutive day strike in November, due to disputes regarding jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The BMA stated that junior physicians will walk out for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Resident doctors, who constitute 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 doctors going unemployed.”
“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in England are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients endure long waits for care and shifts in hospitals remain vacant. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the minister to see that a agreement including options to slowly restore the pay reductions over several years, providing recent graduates a raise of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the government would recognize that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the community and our those we treat and would also help prevent our physicians leaving the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in primary care.
Further information will follow soon.
