Junior Physicians in England to Launch Five Consecutive Day Walkout in November
Medical professionals in England are preparing to begin a five consecutive day walkout next month, due to disputes regarding jobs and pay.
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.
Junior physicians, who constitute about half of all doctors 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, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, pressing the health minister to resolve the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in England are struggling to find jobs, their talents being unused whilst countless individuals endure long waits for care and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the health secretary 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 next four years.”
“We trusted the authorities would recognize that our demands are not just fair but are in the interest of the community and our patients and would also help prevent our physicians leaving the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have as much as eight years of experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in primary care.
More details are expected shortly.
