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

LONDON – Thousands of doctors in England are going on strike for the 11th time on Thursday in a long-running dispute with the government over pay and working conditions, disrupting hospital services just days before the British general election.

The five-day strike by junior doctors – doctors in the early years of their careers – is shining a light on the problems of the chronically underfunded National Health Service (NHS), the UK’s state-funded public health system – and it’s an issue of paramount importance to voters heading to the polls on July 4.

Junior doctors, who form the backbone of hospital and clinical care, have been locked in a pay dispute with the government since late 2022. In January, they went on strike for six days – the longest in the history of the NHS – and hospitals had to cancel tens of thousands of appointments and operations.

The latest strike begins on Thursday and ends on Tuesday, just two days before voters cast their ballots to elect the new House of Commons.

The British Medical Association, the doctors’ union, 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 British 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 where they were better paid, leaving those who remained 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, added that she sees many women waiting for more than a year for routine procedures.

“These patients are suffering and it pains us to see these patients 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.

The Conservative government said it had given doctors pay rises of between 8.1 and 10.3 percent last year, calling this a generous severance package. It insisted that the authorities cannot make a pay offer in the run-up to the election, 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 has declared itself ready to talk and has already held some discussions with the opposition Labour Party, which has a clear lead in the polls.

“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.