LONDON
\nThousands of doctors in England are staging their 11th walkout on Thursday in a long-running dispute with the government over pay and working conditions, disrupting hospital services just days before the UK general election.
\nThe five-day strike by junior doctors \u2014 those in the early years of their careers \u2014 shines a spotlight on the troubles besetting the chronically underfunded National Health Service, Britain\u2019s state-funded public health system, a topic that is a a top concern for voters going to the polls on July 4.
\nJunior doctors, who form the backbone of hospital and clinic care, have been locked in the pay dispute with the government since late 2022. They went on strike for six days in January \u2014 the longest in NHS history \u2014 and hospitals had to cancel tens of thousands of appointments and operations.
\nThe latest strike begins Thursday and ends on Tuesday, just two days before voters cast their ballots to choose a new House of Commons.
\nThe British Medical Association, the doctors\u2019 union, say their pay has dropped by a quarter over the last 15 years and have called for a 35 percent pay uplift. The union says newly qualified doctors earn about 15 pounds ($19) an hour \u2014 the UK minimum wage is just over 10 pounds an hour \u2014 though salaries rise rapidly after the first year.
\nDr. Sumi Manirajan, deputy chair of the junior doctors committee at the union, said that years of underinvestment has resulted in young doctors leaving in droves to countries that offer better pay, with those left behind seriously overworked and underpaid.
\n\u201cDoctors that I trained with in London, some of the best in the country, have left to go to New Zealand. And actually what it makes me think of is why am I not doing the same? I want to be valued for the work that I do,\u201d she said.
\nManirajan, who recently graduated and works in obstetrics and gynecology, added that she sees many women waiting for more than a year for routine procedures.
\n\u201cThese patients are in pain, and it hurts us to see us see these patients come in again and again with the same problem that we know we could treat if we had enough doctors,\u201d she said.
\nThe Conservative government says it gave the doctors pay raises of between 8.1 percent to 10.3 percent last year and said that it was a generous settlement. It maintained that authorities can\u2019t make a pay offer during the preelection period but the union refused to call off the strikes.
\nManirajan said that it was unfortunate that the government chose to call an election while knowing that the dispute was unresolved.
\nThe medics\u2019 union said it was ready to talk, and it has already had some discussions with the opposition Labour Party, which has a considerable lead in polls.
\n\u201cIt is difficult to comprehend how either the Conservative Party or the Labour Party can deliver on their manifesto commitment to recover NHS performance over the next Parliament without first ending the dispute,\u201d said Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at The King\u2019s Fund think tank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON Thousands of doctors in England are staging their 11th walkout on Thursday in a long-running dispute with the government over pay and working conditions, disrupting hospital services just days before the UK general election. The five-day strike by junior doctors \u2014 those in the early years of their careers \u2014 shines a spotlight on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415021,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-415002","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n