Young doctors - those that are either currently in training or with fewer than ten years of experience in service - have gone on strike in the UK on Tuesday. They are striking to draw the attention of the public to disputes largely over working hours in their contracts with the National Health Service (NHS).
The current government of David Cameron is proposing that all junior doctors work 48 hours a week. This number includes the mandatory work that would need to be done during weekends. The government cites data and argues that the absence of doctors during weekends has increased the mortality rates for certain conditions during those weekends. However, the doctors do not agree with this position of the government and are resisting the government's attempts to introduce a standardized workweek (that would include working long hours over the weekends), according to Newsmax.
U.K.'s prime minister, David Cameron, requested the doctors on Monday to not go ahead with their planned strike. But the doctors have gone ahead anyway. Nearly 38,000 doctors and nurses are participating in the strike. This is the first such strike that the U.K. has seen in nearly 40 years, and 4,000 operations that were scheduled for Tuesday had to be cancelled and rescheduled for another date and time as a result.
The NHS was first established by the Labor Party in the 1940s. Virtually all the treatments that it offers are done free of charge. It is funded by deductions from wages and with tax money and is therefore a very revered public institution in the U.K., according to The Guardian.
Depending on the political fall-out from the current strike, at least 4 additional days of strikes have been planned by the British Medical Association, the union that represents nearly 37,000 of the 55,000 junior doctors in U.K. hospitals. Unless a resolution is found, these strikes could potentially cripple the U.K.'s NHS for many more days, according to The New York Times.
