Resident Doctors in England to Launch Five-Day Strike in November
Medical professionals in the UK are set to begin a five-day walkout next month, due to disputes regarding jobs and pay.
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 make up about half of all medical staff in the National Health Service, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the government.
Causes of the Walkout
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “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 crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients endure long waits for care and hospital shifts go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, keen for the minister to understand that a agreement offering solutions to slowly restore the pay reductions over several years, providing recent graduates a raise of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the authorities would recognize that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the community and our patients and would also help prevent our doctors leaving the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Junior physicians have as much as eight years of experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in general practice.
More details are expected soon.
