Junior doctors, doctors in training or internships, began a six-day strike in England this Wednesday, the longest in the history of the British public health system, to obtain an improvement in their salaries.
These doctors, who had already stopped for three days before Christmas, after having staged other strikes in recent months, decided to adopt a new pressure measure after the lack of agreement with the conservative government. This new fighting movement comes at a time when the public health system, the NHS (National Health Service), is overwhelmed by gigantic waiting lists.
According to the British government, 88,000 medical appointments were canceled during the three days of strike in December and the press estimates the number of consultations that will be affected by this new movement at another 200,000. The strike of the ‘junior doctors’, some 70,000 in England, began at 7:00 (local and GMT) on Wednesday and will end next Tuesday at the same time.
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This latest fighting movement only affects England. Health policy is a matter transferred to the administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, while the British government has England under its supervision. In Wales, junior doctors have announced a 72-hour strike starting January 15, while professionals in Northern Ireland have also voted in favor of a possible strike and their Scottish counterparts have reached an agreement with the Edinburgh government.
The British government on Tuesday expressed its willingness to continue negotiating. “We are willing to have further talks, but obviously the first thing we need to do is stop striking,” said a spokesman for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. For its part, the NHS expressed its concern about the consequences of this strike in the middle of winter and after the end of year holidays.
“Not only will this action have a major impact on planned care, it adds to a number of seasonal pressures such as Covid, flu and staff absences due to illness, which are affecting the way patients are cared for. patients in hospitals,” warned Stephen Powis, director of the NHS in England. According to the British government, a ‘junior doctor’ earns around 32,000 pounds ($40,640) during their first year of training.
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“After five weeks of intense negotiations, the government has not shown itself capable of presenting a credible salary offer,” explained the doctors’ union BMA (British Medical Association) in early December in the statement announcing this new strike movement. . According to the BMA, to which around 46,000 ‘junior doctors’ are affiliated, their salaries have fallen by almost a quarter since 2008.
“Junior doctors” were offered a 3% increase, in addition to the 8.8% increase already granted a few months ago, but, according to the BMA union, these proposals are not enough to cope with the increase in the cost of living in the United Kingdom.
This new strike is “very disappointing,” Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in mid-December during a session in Parliament, stressing that “junior doctors” are now “the only” public employees with whom there has been no signed no salary agreement. The United Kingdom has experienced several strikes since mid-2022 due to the purchasing power crisis. Long stuck above 10%, inflation recently stood at 3.9% year-on-year in November.
Fuente: AFP.
2024-01-03 12:03:51
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