Resident Doctors in the UK to Begin Five Consecutive Day Strike in November
Medical professionals in the UK are preparing to stage a five-day walkout next month, in protest over pay and employment.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that junior physicians will strike for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am to November 19 at 7am.
Resident doctors, who constitute nearly 50% of all medical staff in the NHS, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the government.
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 officials, urging the health secretary to end the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in England 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 continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, keen for the minister to understand that a deal including options to slowly restore the pay reductions over several years, giving newly trained doctors a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the authorities would see that our demands are not just fair but are in the best interests of the community and our patients and would also help stop our physicians departing from the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have as much as eight years of experience practicing in hospitals, based on their field, or up to three years in general practice.
More details are expected shortly.
