Resident Doctors in England to Stage Five-Day Strike in November
Medical professionals in the UK 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 resident doctors will strike for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Resident doctors, who make up nearly 50% of all medical staff in the NHS, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
Dr Jack Fletcher commented, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with officials, pressing the health minister 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 wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts 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 offering solutions to gradually reverse the pay reductions over a number of years, providing recent graduates a pay increase of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the government would see that our demands are not just fair but are in the best interests of the public and our those we treat and would also help prevent our doctors departing from the health service.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Resident doctors have as much as eight years of experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in general practice.
Further information will follow soon.
