Junior Doctors in England to Begin Five-Day Walkout in November
Medical professionals in England are set to stage a five-day walkout next month, in protest over jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that resident doctors will strike for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Resident doctors, who constitute nearly 50% of all medical staff in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the health department.
Causes of the Walkout
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee stated, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, pressing the health secretary to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients endure long waits for care and shifts in hospitals remain vacant. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the minister to understand that a deal including options to gradually reverse the pay reductions over a number of years, providing newly trained doctors a raise of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the government would see that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the community and our those we treat and would also help stop our doctors leaving the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
Junior physicians have as much as eight years of experience working as a hospital doctor, based on their field, or up to three years in primary care.
More details will follow soon.
