Resident Doctors in England to Stage Five Consecutive Day Walkout Next Month
Medical professionals in the UK are preparing to begin a five-day strike next month, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) stated that resident doctors will walk out for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.
Resident doctors, who constitute about half of all medical staff in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the health department.
Reasons Behind the Strike
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with officials, urging the health minister to end the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“Our survey reveals 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their talents being unused whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, keen for the health secretary to see that a agreement including options to slowly restore the pay reductions over a number of years, providing recent graduates a raise of only £1 per hour for the next four years.”
“We trusted the government would see that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the public and our those we treat and would also help prevent our physicians leaving the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, based on their field, or as many as three years in primary care.
Further information are expected soon.