Junior Doctors in the UK to Stage Five-Day Strike in November
Medical professionals in the UK are preparing to begin a five-day walkout next month, in protest over pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The BMA announced 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 make up about half of all medical staff in the NHS, are taking this action after unsuccessful talks with the health department.
Reasons Behind the Strike
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with government, pressing the health secretary 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 see that a agreement including options to slowly restore the pay reductions over a number of years, providing recent graduates a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the government would recognize that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the community and our those we treat 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, based on their field, or as many as three years in primary care.
Further information will follow soon.
