Resident Physicians in the UK to Begin Five Consecutive Day Strike Next Month
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 resident doctors will walk out for five consecutive days from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who constitute nearly 50% of all medical staff in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after unsuccessful talks with the health department.
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 government, pressing the health minister to resolve the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“We know from our own survey 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 shifts in hospitals remain vacant. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the minister to see that a agreement offering solutions to slowly restore the cuts to pay over a number of years, giving newly trained doctors 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 doctors leaving the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have as much as eight years of experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in primary care.
More details are expected shortly.
