Resident Doctors in the UK to Stage Five Consecutive Day Walkout Next Month
Doctors in the UK are preparing to stage a five consecutive day walkout next month, in protest over pay and employment.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) stated 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 constitute about half of all doctors in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the health department.
Causes of the Walkout
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee stated, “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 crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their talents being unused whilst millions of patients endure long waits for care and shifts in hospitals 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 see that a agreement including options to slowly restore the pay reductions over a number of years, providing recent graduates a raise of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the authorities would recognize that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the community and our patients and would also help stop our physicians departing from the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
Junior physicians have as much as eight years of experience practicing in hospitals, based on their field, or up to three years in general practice.
Further information will follow soon.
