Resident Doctors in England to Begin Five-Day Walkout Next Month
Doctors in the UK are preparing to stage a five consecutive day walkout next month, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The BMA announced that junior physicians will walk out for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am to November 19 at 7am.
Junior physicians, who make up about half of all doctors in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the health department.
Causes of the Walkout
Dr Jack Fletcher stated, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have been negotiating for the past week with government, urging the health minister to resolve the crisis of doctors going unemployed.”
“Our survey reveals 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are facing unemployment, their talents being unused whilst countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, keen for the health secretary to see that a agreement offering solutions to slowly restore the cuts to pay over a number of years, providing newly trained doctors a raise of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the government would recognize that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the community and our those we treat and would also help stop our physicians leaving the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in general practice.
More details will follow shortly.