The inevitable time has come for Britain as the British Medical Association has officially announced that junior doctors in NHS hospitals are going to go on strike on December 1st, 8th, and 16th. This is coming off of Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s controversial decision. Hunt announced changes to the working conditions and changes to the weekend pay for NHS hospital employees.
NHS HOSPITALS MUST PROVIDE SOLUTION
It is obvious that the British government is not to concerned with the NHS hospitals if they allow them to have no doctors work there on three days in December. Understandably, there is only so much they can do to stop them and they can not control if they go on strike. However, they could listen to their doctors and compromise with them to avoid this strike. Now they must find people to fill in those three days at the NHS hospitals and by the sounds of it, they have. The British Medical Association announced that the plan is to use medics from the Armed Forces to help on December 1st, 8th, and 16th. The British Medical Association did mention how the members of the Armed Forces are not obligated to participate, but that they are welcomed to. Hopefully they do because if they do not, the British Medical Association’s plan would have backfired.
Hunt stated that he previously denied to discussing anything with the British Medical Association until they started negotiating first. However, he stated that any talking is better than a strike and they ended up communicating. The British Medical Association did mention that the strike is still planned. It will be interesting to see how the NHS hospitals fare on the strike days, but as long as the British Medical Association‘s plan comes to fruition, they should survive. That does not mean that the doctors of the NHS hospitals will get what they want, but they will send a message to the Health Secretary.
