Resident Doctors in England to Begin Five Consecutive Day Strike in November
Medical professionals in the UK are preparing to stage a five consecutive day walkout next month, in protest over pay and employment.
Strike Details
The BMA stated that junior physicians will walk out for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who make up about half of all medical staff in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after unsuccessful talks 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, urging the health secretary to end the scandal 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 wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts remain vacant. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We negotiated sincerely, keen for the health secretary to see that a agreement offering solutions to slowly restore the pay reductions over a number of years, giving recent graduates a pay increase of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the authorities would recognize 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 physicians leaving the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, based on their field, or as many as three years in primary care.
Further information will follow soon.
