Resident Doctors in England to Launch Five Consecutive Day Walkout Next Month
Medical professionals in England are set to begin a five-day strike in November, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) stated that resident doctors will strike for five consecutive days from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.
Resident doctors, who constitute nearly 50% of all doctors in the National Health Service, are taking this action after unsuccessful talks with the health department.
Reasons Behind the Strike
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 officials, urging the health minister to end the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in England are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts remain vacant. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, keen for the health secretary to see that a agreement offering solutions to gradually reverse the cuts to pay 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 authorities would recognize that our demands are not just fair but are in the best interests of the community 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, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in general practice.
More details will follow soon.