Thousands of doctors begin a five-day strike on Thursday, a mobilization of unprecedented duration, to demand a salary increase in the midst of a cost of living crisis. The “junior doctors”, a status close to that of interns in France, begin a new strike from 07:00 (06:00 GMT) Thursday, until Tuesday at the same time.
This is their longest continuous mobilization in the history of the NHS, the British public health service which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, according to the BMA (British Medical Association) union. In the UK, ‘junior doctors’ make up around half of hospital doctors, ranging from young doctors just out of university to practitioners with more than eight years’ experience. They have stepped up strikes in recent months, which has led to the postponement of many non-urgent appointments.
This Thursday ‘marks the start of the longest doctors’ strike in NHS history’, BMA officials Robert Laurenson and Vivek Trivedi said. “We can call off this strike if the British government follows the example” of the Scottish government, which made a new offer which led to a suspension of the movement. The government’s ’total inflexibility’ is ‘puzzling’ and ‘ultimately destructive to anyone who wants waiting lists to go down and NHS staff to go up’, they added.
When announced at the end of June, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health had considered this new strike “extremely disappointing”, arguing that “these five days of strike would cause major disruption for patients and put pressure on the other categories of the NHS staff”.
The government believes that strikes should be suspended pending negotiations and said it was “ready to continue discussions if the strike is called off” and if the strikers walk away from their “unreasonable wage demands”. The BMA union says junior doctors have lost 26% of pay, in real terms, since 2008, when austerity measures were imposed on health services.
The union is demanding a 35% increase in wages, which the government opposes. The NHS is going through a deep crisis, weakened by austerity policies and the consequences of the pandemic. According to BMA figures, some 7.42 million people were awaiting treatment in England in April, with just over 3 million patients waiting for more than 18 months.
While inflation weighs on purchasing power in the United Kingdom, walkouts have been observed by nurses as well as doctors and paramedics. After the “junior doctors”, the “consultants”, more qualified doctors, have filed a strike notice for July 20 and 21.
The NHS, to which the British are very attached, is going through a deep crisis, weakened for several years by austerity policies. The Covid-19 pandemic has made the situation worse, creating gigantic waiting lists across many specialties, with more than 7.4million people waiting for treatment in England in April.
