Junior Physicians in England to Stage Five Consecutive Day Strike in November
Medical professionals in England are preparing to stage a five-day strike in November, in protest over jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that junior physicians will strike for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Resident doctors, who constitute about half of all medical staff in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the health department.
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, pressing the health minister to resolve the crisis of doctors going unemployed.”
“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their talents being unused whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We negotiated sincerely, keen for the minister to understand that a deal including options to slowly restore the cuts to pay over a number of years, providing newly trained doctors 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 public and our those we treat and would also help prevent our doctors leaving the health service.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
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 are expected soon.
