Junior Doctors in the UK to Launch Five Consecutive Day Strike in November
Medical professionals in the UK are preparing to stage a five-day walkout next month, due to disputes regarding jobs and pay.
Walkout Information
The British Medical Association (BMA) stated that junior physicians will walk out for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am 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 government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee stated, “We did not want to reach this point. We have spent the last week in talks with officials, urging the health secretary to end the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“Our survey reveals 50% of second-year physicians in England are struggling to find jobs, their talents being unused whilst countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts remain vacant. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the minister to see that a agreement offering solutions to slowly restore the cuts to pay over a number of years, giving recent graduates a raise of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”
“We hoped the authorities would see that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the community and our those we treat and would also help prevent our physicians leaving the NHS.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Resident doctors 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.
More details will follow shortly.
