Resident Physicians in England to Begin Five-Day Walkout Next Month
Medical professionals in the UK are set to stage a five-day walkout in November, in protest over jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The BMA announced that junior physicians will walk out for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Junior physicians, who constitute nearly 50% of all doctors in the National Health Service, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the health department.
Causes of the Walkout
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee stated, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with government, pressing the health secretary to end the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey 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 hospital shifts go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the health secretary to understand that a agreement including options to gradually reverse the cuts to pay over a number of years, providing recent graduates a pay increase of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the authorities would recognize that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the public and our patients and would also help prevent our physicians departing from the NHS.”
Who Are Resident Physicians?
Junior physicians have as much as eight years of experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in primary care.
Further information are expected soon.