UK junior doctors on strike demanding pay rise

Saeed Pourreza
Press TV, London

The UK government calls their pay demands unrealistic, but these junior doctors say that's simply what they are worth. Four days of strikes with the government yet to come up with what the unions call a "credible offer." 

The strikes come in the wake of a four-day bank holiday weekend causing a level of disruption unseen since public sector strikes began last summer, but the doctors here say, they were left with no choice.

Junior doctors, all qualified doctors training to reach consultant level, account for about half of all physicians working within the NHS with pay packets ranging between 36 thousand and 71 thousand dollars a year. But pay, the doctors say, is one reason they're on the pickeline.

The British Medical Journal says, last year alone, nearly seven thousand UK doctors applied for a certificate to work abroad mainly to Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

The British Medical Association which represents doctors is asking for a pay rise of 35 percent. The government says that pay demand is out of step with other settlements in the public sector and accuses the BMA of maintaining a militant stance. The striking doctors disagree.

A future that is now in doubt with a push for privatization. This week's action by junior doctors will mean an estimated two hundred thousand appointments, procedures, even time sensitive cancer treatments delayed.

This is the latest in a wave of industrial action by public sector workers in the UK, demanding pay hikes to match inflation that exceeds 10 percent. Underpaid, overworked, and demoralized, these doctors work for a national health service that's teetering; stricken by strikes and mired in dispute.

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