Junior Doctors in the UK to Begin Five Consecutive Day Walkout in November
Doctors in England are preparing to stage a five consecutive day walkout in November, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) stated that resident doctors will walk out for five consecutive days from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.
Resident doctors, who make up about half of all doctors in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the government.
Causes of the Walkout
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, urging the health minister to resolve the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in England are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst countless individuals endure long waits for care and hospital shifts go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the minister to understand that a agreement including options to slowly restore the cuts to pay over several years, giving recent graduates a pay increase of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the authorities would see that our asks are not just fair but are in the best interests of the community and our patients and would also help stop our physicians leaving the NHS.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in general practice.
More details are expected shortly.
