Junior doctors in Wales begin a three-day strike over their pay
Junior doctors across Wales are starting a three-day strike over pay, after the Welsh Government and hospital leaders warned of the pressure on the health service.
The strike, which starts at 7am on Monday and will last until 7am on Thursday, could see more than 3,000 doctors take industrial action. The Welsh NHS Confederation, which represents health boards in Wales, said the strike would coincide with one of the “most pressured weeks of the year, following recent weeks of significant winter pressure”.
Welsh Health Minister Eluned Morgan said the impact on services was expected to be significant, but added that care would continue in urgent and life-threatening cases. The halt follows an unprecedented six-day strike by trainee doctors in England that ended last week and led to care being canceled for more than 110,000 patients.
The doctors’ union, BMA Cymru Wales, said the vote to strike was taken as part of a campaign to restore wages, which they say have eroded by almost a third since 2008-09, when wages in real terms began to descend. .
Dr. Oba Babs-Osibodu and Dr Peter Fahey, co-chairs of the BMA Cymru Wales junior doctors committee, said: “No doctor wants to strike. We had hoped that the Welsh Government had properly understood the strong feelings among doctors in Wales. Unfortunately, their inaction on this issue has brought us here today, demoralized, frustrated and angry.”
The union said doctors will be present at picket lines outside all Wales’ main hospital sites and will raise their concerns with members of the Senedd with a planned mass demonstration on Tuesday. The Welsh Junior Doctors Committee took the decision to vote on its members in August after the Welsh Government offered a 5% deal.
Babs-Osibodu and Fahey said: “Our members have been forced to make this difficult decision as doctors in training in Wales have experienced a real pay cut of 29.6% over the past fifteen years.”
The Health Secretary said pay recovery for junior doctors in Wales was impossible without a significant increase in funding from the UK Government.
“We are disappointed that trainee doctors have voted in favor of industrial action, but we understand the strong feelings among BMA members,” Morgan said. “The UK government has failed to properly fund public services over the last 13 years. The Welsh Government budget between 2024 and 2025 would be £3 billion higher if it had grown in line with the economy since 2010.”