UK junior doctors go on strike, affecting thousands of services and procedures
Junior doctors in the UK have started a three-day strike, demanding a hike in their salaries. The strike is expected to severely hit many services, forcing hospitals to cancel tens of thousands of outpatient appointments and operations this week. The severity of the strike can be gauged by the fact that NHS has had to postpone a lot more procedures than it did when the nurses and ambulance staff staged a walkout a few weeks back.
Around 61,000 junior doctors, including trainees, are stopping work for 72 hours, starting 7 am on Monday, seeking a 26 per cent rise in pay. Health secretary, Steve Barclay, had asked British Medical Association (BMA) and Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association (HCSA) to call off the action without committing to start negotiations over the matter. So the bodies have decided to go ahead with the planned strikes.
Junior doctors won’t be available in areas offering life-or-death care, including A&E, critical care and maternity services.
The British Medical Association says the 26 per cent hike is being demanded as “full pay restoration” for the real-term loss in income suffered by them since 2008/09. The junior doctors are demanding a 35 per cent wage hike to combat this loss.
Hospitals are set to face massive problems during the strike as senior doctors aren’t able to provide maximum medical supervision despite working long hours as junior doctors normally carry out much of day-to-day patient management.
A hospital executive told Guardian, “What worries me most is that there’ll be fewer medical rounds on the wards than usual and that one or two consultants will have a lot of beds to look after, and may also have to keep an eye on people in A&E, and so may not be able to see every patient every day the way we expect these days.”
“Therefore patients whose health is deteriorating could get missed. There is a risk of us missing opportunities to intervene with people and prevent them from coming to harm.”
The executive further said that the hospital had to cancel more than 1,000 outpatient appointments and several surgical procedures due to the strikes. However, he supports the striking junior doctors.
“But do I think the strike is to any degree irresponsible? No, I fully support them striking. Junior doctors should be paid more because they do bloody hard jobs and do it under a lot of stress and pressure. They’re making a point. I do want to see the government pay them more.”
On the other hand, Barclay, in a column in the Sunday Telegraph, insisted that the demands being made by the junior doctors were “simply unaffordable” and would cost the taxpayer an extra two billion pounds ($2.4 billion).
(With inputs from agencies)
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