Resident Physicians in England to Begin Five Consecutive Day Walkout in November
Medical professionals in the UK are set to stage a five-day walkout in November, in protest over pay and employment.
Strike Details
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.
Junior physicians, who make up nearly 50% of all doctors in the NHS, are taking this action after unsuccessful talks with the health department.
Reasons Behind the Strike
Dr Jack Fletcher stated, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with government, urging the health minister to resolve the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”
“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in England are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients 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 see 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 coming four years.”
“We trusted the government would see that our demands are not just fair but are in the interest of the public and our patients and would also help stop our physicians leaving 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 general practice.
More details are expected shortly.
