Resident Doctors in the UK to Launch Five-Day Walkout in November
Medical professionals in England are preparing to stage a five consecutive day walkout next month, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that junior physicians will walk out for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.
Junior physicians, who make up about half of all medical staff in the NHS, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the health department.
Reasons Behind the Strike
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with government, urging the health secretary to resolve the scandal of unemployed physicians.”
“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in England are facing unemployment, their talents being unused 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 see that a agreement offering solutions to slowly restore the pay reductions over a number of years, giving newly trained doctors a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”
“We hoped the government would recognize 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 doctors departing from the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have as much as eight years of experience practicing in hospitals, based on their field, or as many as three years in primary care.
More details are expected shortly.
