Resident Physicians in England to Stage Five Consecutive Day Strike in November
Doctors in the UK are set to stage a five-day strike next month, due to disputes regarding jobs and pay.
Walkout Information
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that junior physicians will walk out for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Junior physicians, who constitute nearly 50% of all doctors in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the health department.
Causes of the Walkout
Dr Jack Fletcher commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have spent the last week in talks with government, urging the health minister to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We talked with the government in good faith, keen for the health secretary to see that a deal offering solutions to slowly restore the pay reductions over a number of years, giving 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 fair but are in the best interests of the community and our patients and would also help prevent our physicians leaving the health service.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, based on their field, or as many as three years in general practice.
More details will follow shortly.