Resident Physicians in the UK to Stage Five Consecutive Day Walkout Next Month
Medical professionals in the UK are preparing to begin a five consecutive day walkout next month, in protest over jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The BMA announced that junior physicians will walk out for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Resident doctors, who constitute nearly 50% of all doctors in the National Health Service, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the health department.
Reasons Behind the Strike
Dr Jack Fletcher commented, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have been negotiating for the past week with government, pressing the health secretary to end the scandal of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in England are facing unemployment, their talents being unused whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals remain vacant. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the minister to see that a agreement including options to slowly restore the pay reductions over several years, providing recent graduates a raise of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the government would see that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the community and our patients and would also help stop our physicians leaving the health service.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, based on their field, or as many as three years in primary care.
More details are expected soon.
