Thousands of doctors strike in England a week before the British general election

LONDON (AP) — Thousands of doctors in England are going on strike for the 11th time on Thursday, citing a long-running dispute with the government over pay and working conditions. Disruptions in hospitals are expected just days before the British Department of Health opens its doors. Parliamentary elections.

The five-day strike by junior doctors – doctors in the first years of their careers – highlights the problems of chronically underfunded National Health ServiceBritain’s state-run public health system, an issue of paramount importance to voters heading to the polls on July 4th.

Assistant doctors, who make up about half of the total medical staff and form the backbone of hospital and clinic care, have been stuck in a wage dispute with the government since the end of 2022. They went on strike for six days in January – the longest in the history of the NHS – and hospitals had to cancel tens of thousands of appointments and operations.

The latest strike began on Thursday and ends on Tuesday, just two days before voters cast their votes for the new House of Commons.

The British Medical Association says their salaries have fallen by a quarter in the past 15 years and is demanding a 35 percent pay rise. The union says newly qualified doctors earn about 15 pounds ($19) an hour – the UK minimum wage is just over 10 pounds an hour – but after the first year, salaries rise quickly.

Dr Sumi Manirajan, vice-chair of the union’s young doctors committee, said years of underinvestment had led to young doctors leaving in droves for countries like Australia where they were better paid, while those who stayed behind were severely overworked and underpaid.

“Doctors I trained under in London, some of the best in the country, have gone to New Zealand. And I actually wonder why I don’t do the same. I want to be valued for the work I do,” she said.

Manirajan, a recent graduate who works in obstetrics and gynecology, said she sees many women having to wait more than a year for routine procedures.

“These patients are suffering and it pains us to see them coming to us again and again with the same problem, even though we know we could treat it if we had enough doctors,” she said.

Dr Shivam Sharma, who was one of his colleagues chanting on the picket line outside St Thomas’ Hospital in central London on Thursday, described the state of the British health service as “appalling”.

“We used to have real standards in this country. Patients had to be seen in a hospital emergency room within four hours, now you’re lucky if you get there within 12 hours,” he said. “Last winter we had 500 preventable deaths a week. That’s like a Boeing plane full of patients crashing. That’s totally unacceptable.”

The Conservative government says it gave doctors pay rises of between 8.1 and 10.3 percent last year and that this was a generous settlement. It stressed that the authorities could not make a pay offer during the pre-election period, but the union refused to call off the strikes.

Manirajan said it was unfortunate that the government had decided to call fresh elections despite knowing that the dispute was unresolved.

The doctors’ union said it was ready to talk and had already held talks with the opposition Labour Party, which has a significant lead in the polls. Labour leader Keir Starmer told reporters on Thursday that if elected he would start talks with junior doctors “on day one”.

“It is difficult to understand how the Conservative Party or the Labour Party can deliver on their election promise to improve NHS performance in the next parliamentary term without first resolving the conflict,” says Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at The King’s Fund think tank.

___

Associated Press video journalist Tian Macleod Ji contributed to this report.