Junior Doctors in England to Begin Five-Day Strike in November
Medical professionals in the UK are set to begin a five consecutive day walkout in November, in protest over jobs and pay.
Walkout Information
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 make up about half of all doctors in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations 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 spent the last week in talks with officials, pressing the health minister to resolve the crisis of doctors going unemployed.”
“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in the UK are facing unemployment, 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 continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the minister to understand that a deal offering solutions to gradually reverse the pay reductions over several years, giving recent graduates a raise of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the authorities would see that our demands are not just fair but are in the best interests of the community and our those we treat and would also help prevent our doctors leaving the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in general practice.
Further information will follow shortly.
