Junior Doctors in the UK to Begin Five Consecutive Day Walkout Next Month
Medical professionals in the UK are set to begin a five-day walkout in November, in protest over pay and employment.
Strike Details
The BMA announced that junior physicians will walk out for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.
Resident doctors, who constitute nearly 50% of all medical staff in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the government.
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 officials, pressing the health minister to end the scandal of unemployed physicians.”
“Our survey reveals 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts remain vacant. 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 cuts to pay over a number of years, giving recent graduates a raise of only £1 per hour for the next four years.”
“We trusted the government would recognize that our demands are not just fair but are in the interest of the community and our those we treat and would also help stop our physicians departing from the NHS.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Junior physicians have as much as eight years of experience working as a hospital doctor, based on their field, or up to three years in primary care.
Further information will follow soon.
