Junior Doctors in the UK to Begin Five-Day Walkout in November
Doctors in the UK are preparing to begin a five-day walkout next month, in protest over pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The BMA announced that junior physicians will walk out for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Junior physicians, who make up about half of all doctors in the NHS, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the health department.
Reasons Behind the Strike
Dr Jack Fletcher stated, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, pressing the health secretary to end the crisis of doctors going unemployed.”
“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in England are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts remain vacant. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We talked with the government in good faith, keen for the health secretary to see that a deal offering solutions to gradually reverse the pay reductions over several years, providing recent graduates a raise of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”
“We trusted the government would see that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the public and our those we treat and would also help prevent our physicians departing from the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have as much as eight years of experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in primary care.
More details will follow soon.