Junior Doctors in the UK to Begin Five-Day Strike in November
Medical professionals in the UK are set to stage a five-day walkout next month, due to disputes regarding jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that resident doctors will strike for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Junior physicians, who constitute nearly 50% of all doctors in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the government.
Causes of the Walkout
Dr Jack Fletcher stated, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have been negotiating for the past week with government, urging the health minister to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in the UK are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This cannot continue.”
He added, “We talked with the government in good faith, keen for the health secretary to understand that a deal including options to slowly restore the pay reductions over a number of years, giving newly trained doctors a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the government would see that our demands are not just fair but are in the interest of the public and our patients and would also help stop our physicians leaving the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have as much as eight years of experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in primary care.
Further information will follow soon.
