News / BMA
Junior doctors go on strike to demand fair pay
As usual with a large protest, you could hear them before you could see them.
Outside the BRI on Monday morning, dozens of junior doctors formed a vocal picket line, chanting and waving placards as car drivers and the occasional paramedic in an ambulance hooted in support while passing the hospital.
Doctors’ trade union the BMA is asking for an immediate full pay restoration, saying that £14 an hour is not a fair wage for a junior doctor.
James, a junior doctor who had been working a night shift in intensive care before leading some of the chanting on a megaphone, told Bristol24/7: “This thing we do for a living is a real privilege. It’s great to be able to look after people, and use our education skills and experience to do that.
“I think it’s appropriate that we are remunerated properly. I don’t want a rise. I just want us to be paid what we are worth.”
BMA rep Emma Coombe, who works as a doctor in the Children’s Hospital, added: “These junior doctors are highly qualified. They could work anywhere in the world and the truth is that other countries like Ireland, Australia and New Zealand are paying about double what the UK would offer them and in better working conditions as well.
“But we want to stay in the NHS and we want to stay in the UK. We need the government’s help to do that.”
Main photo & videos: Martin Booth
Read next:
- Incredible show of unity from frontline workers outside BRI
- Striking teachers say ‘enough is enough’
- Ambulance workers in Bristol join national day of strikes
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