Resident Physicians in England to Launch Five Consecutive Day Walkout Next Month
Medical professionals in England are set to begin a five consecutive day walkout in November, in protest over pay and employment.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) stated that resident doctors will strike for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Junior physicians, who constitute about half of all doctors in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with government, urging the health secretary to resolve the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts go unfilled. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the minister to understand that a agreement including options to slowly restore the cuts to pay over a number of years, giving recent graduates a raise of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”
“We trusted the government would see that our asks are not just fair but are in the best interests of the community and our those we treat and would also help stop our doctors departing from the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have as much as eight years of experience working as a hospital doctor, based on their field, or as many as three years in primary care.
More details will follow shortly.
