LONDON: Junior doctors in England on Wednesday defended a decision to start their longest consecutive strike in the seven-decade history of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS).
The doctors — those below consultant level — began the six-day walkout at 0700 GMT, in a major escalation of a long-running pay dispute with the UK government. The industrial action, which ends next Tuesday, comes at one of the busiest times of the year for the state-funded NHS, when it faces increased pressure from winter respiratory illnesses. It follows a three-day strike held by doctors just before Christmas, and a series of stoppages across various UK industries and sectors last year sparked by high inflation and a cost-of-living crisis.
Striking doctors say their wages have gone down by around a quarter in real terms under the current government, which has been in power since 2010.
“I’m here because we deserve better as doctors,” Callum Parr, an accident and emergency doctor from London, told AFP from a picket line outside St Thomas’ Hospital in the British capital.
The 25-year-old medic said he was £120,000 ($150,000) in debt after six years at university, and facing increasing costs including rapidly rising rental prices in the city. “Our job is hard, we knew it would be hard, we went to medical school which is also hard, and we want to help patients,” he said. “But you also have to be able to pay your bills.”
Outside the hospital, across the River Thames from the UK parliament, medics held up signs calling for better funding for the overstretched health service.
Others read “£15/hour is not a fair wage for a junior doctor” and “Reduced pay keeps the doctor away” with a map of Australia, which has previously advertised for UK-based staff to move.
“Retention is not going to happen if we don’t pay our doctors properly,” said Shivani Ganesh, a 23-year-old medical student.
“We are highly intelligent and highly skilled people, and other companies and other countries do value those skills and pay us appropriately,” he said.
UK Health Secretary Victoria Atkins warned that the latest strikes would have a “serious impact” on patients across the country.
More than 1.2 million appointments have been rescheduled since the start of the strikes, including more than 88,000 last month, she added.