Resident Physicians in England to Launch Five-Day Walkout in November
Medical professionals in England are set to stage a five consecutive day strike next month, in protest over pay and employment.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) stated that junior physicians will walk out for five consecutive days from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who constitute nearly 50% of all medical staff in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after unsuccessful talks with the health department.
Causes of the Walkout
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have been negotiating for the past week with government, pressing the health minister to resolve the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in England are facing unemployment, their talents being unused whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals remain vacant. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the minister to see that a agreement offering solutions to slowly restore the pay reductions over several years, providing newly trained doctors a raise of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”
“We hoped the government would recognize that our demands are not just fair but are in the interest of the public and our patients and would also help stop our doctors leaving the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in primary care.
More details will follow soon.
