Resident Physicians in England to Stage Five-Day Walkout in November
Medical professionals in England are set to begin a five-day strike next month, in protest over pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that junior physicians will walk out for five consecutive days from November 14 at 7am to November 19 at 7am.
Resident doctors, who make up about half of all doctors in the NHS, are taking this action after unsuccessful talks with the health department.
Reasons Behind the Strike
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 government, urging the health minister to resolve the crisis of doctors going unemployed.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste 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 negotiated sincerely, hoping the minister to see that a agreement including options to slowly restore the pay reductions over several years, giving recent graduates a pay increase of only £1 per hour for the next four years.”
“We hoped the authorities would see that our demands are not just fair but are in the best interests of the public 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 working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in general practice.
Further information are expected shortly.
