Resident Physicians in the UK to Begin Five Consecutive Day Walkout Next Month
Medical professionals in the UK are preparing to begin a five consecutive day walkout in November, due to disputes regarding jobs and pay.
Strike Details
The BMA announced that resident doctors will walk out for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who constitute nearly 50% of all doctors in the National Health Service, are taking this action after unsuccessful talks with the health department.
Causes of the Walkout
Dr Jack Fletcher commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have spent the last week in talks with officials, urging the health minister to resolve the scandal of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in England are struggling to find jobs, their talents being unused whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the health secretary to see that a agreement including options to slowly restore the pay reductions over a number of years, giving recent graduates a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We trusted the government would recognize that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the community and our patients and would also help prevent our doctors leaving 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 as many as three years in primary care.
Further information are expected soon.
