Do you support the Junior Doctor’s latest planned 5 day strike?
There is continuing unrest in hospitals as we hear today that Junior Doctors have more plans to go on strike due to the inability to agree a new working contract with the Health Secretary. Jeremy Hunt says plans by junior doctors to hold five consecutive days of strikes this month in hospitals in England will cause misery for patients.
The all-out strikes will take place from from 12 to 16 September, with more to follow apparently.
Confidential papers seen from the British Medical Association (BMA) said there could be 5 days of strikes each month for the rest of this year. Jeremy Hunt has called it devastating news and added “Perhaps 100,000 operations will now have to be cancelled, around a million hospital appointments will have to be postponed, causing worry, distress and anxiety for families up and down the country.”
The British Medical Association (BMA) said members were opposed to the new contract which was being imposed. Negotiations have been ongoing for months now, with no clear end in sight.
Mr Hunt said he was prepared to talk further with the BMA – but only if they called off the planned strikes.
But Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the BMA council, blamed the “continued reluctance” of Mr Hunt to do “anything other than impose a contract on junior doctors”.
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts, said the strikes would have “a very serious impact on a very large number of patients”.
The doctors have support from Diana Abbott the Shadow Health Secretary who has said its not too late for Mr Hunt to “stop his idea of imposing a contract on Junior Doctors” and implored him to “get back into talks”
We asked our Silversurfers community a similar question back in April and 63% of you were in support of the Junior Doctors striking. Do you still feel the same?
Were you affected by the previous strikes? Should Jeremy Hunt get back into more negotiations or tough out the strikes? Are the doctors now becoming unreasonable or is it unreasonable to force them into a new contract?
