Iran Press/ Europe: Thousands of British junior doctors went on strike Monday to protest low pay and poor working conditions. The three-day protest is set to be the biggest doctor's strike since Britain's National Health Service (NHS) was founded nearly 75 years ago.
The strike is the latest involving staff at Britain's state-funded National Health Service (NHS), following walkouts by nurses, paramedics and others demanding a pay rise that better reflects double-digit levels of inflation.
Junior doctors — who are qualified but in the earlier years of their career — make up 45% of all doctors in the National Health Service. Their walkout means that operations and appointments will be canceled for thousands of patients, and senior doctors and other medics have had to be drafted in to cover for emergency services, critical care and maternity services.
The British Medical Association, the doctors’ trade union, says pay for junior doctors has fallen 26% in real terms since 2008, while workload and patient waiting lists are at record highs. The union says burnout and the U.K.’s cost-of-living crisis are driving scores of doctors away from the public health service. 219
