Junior Physicians in the UK to Stage Five-Day Walkout Next Month
Medical professionals in England are preparing to stage a five-day walkout in November, in protest over pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The BMA announced that resident doctors will walk out for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who constitute about half of all medical staff in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after unsuccessful talks with the government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
Dr Jack Fletcher commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, pressing the health secretary to resolve the scandal of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their talents being unused whilst countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts go unfilled. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, keen for the minister to see that a deal including options to slowly restore the pay reductions 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 authorities would recognize that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the community and our patients and would also help stop our doctors 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 are expected soon.
