British doctors begin third round of strike

Members of the British Medical Association (BMA) in England carried out a third round of strike for a full 72 hours from 7:00am today to 6:59am local time on June 17, TV reported in the capital.

In a statement, the BMA shared the results of a survey among young doctors, saying that 53 per cent of respondents were planning to leave or were considering leaving the NHS as a result of the government’s response to the problem.

The statement also mentions a letter from the Chairman of the British BMA Board, Professor Philip Banfield, to the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, urging him to step in to resolve the dispute.

They, the doctors, had to do it to try to get their government to listen and understand the desperate reality of how things are happening on the front lines of the health system, he said in the letter.

The union’s strike decision came in May due to an ongoing dispute over wage offers, as previously stated by the BMA.

Along with the offer of a fair increase in pay, BMA emphasized its demand for adequate compensation for their work, saying that resident doctors’ salaries had been cut by 26.1 percent since 2008.

In addition, Labor’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has thrown out his support for young striking doctors and joined forces with the BMA to call on Sunak to step in to solve the problem.

The reason young doctors are striking is because they have no one to negotiate with, he said in interviews with local media.

Meanwhile, young Scottish doctors are planning to go on strike after the majority of members rejected a salary offer from the Scottish government.

According to BMA Scotland, the three-day strike will take place from 12 to 15 July, in which 66.3 per cent of its members will participate.

In May, the Scottish government offered young doctors an aggregate increase of 14.5 per cent over two years, promising discussions on changes to the payment system in the future.

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Stuart Martin

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