UK junior doctors plan 2nd walkout Wednesday
Junior doctors in the UK will walk out of both emergency and routine care Wednesday following their historic strike the day before.
Thousands of junior doctors walked off their jobs Tuesday over a contract dispute, marking the first all-out strike in the history of the National Health Service (NHS).
The two-day strike began upon a call by the British Medical Association (BMA), affecting almost all medical services, including accident and emergency, intensive care and maternity, all of which were disrupted for the first time over a long-running contract dispute.
During the second day of strike, medics will not provide any emergency care, which instead has been supplied by junior doctors' consultant colleagues.
Hospitals are now hoping less urgent patients will stay away on Wednesday, but they reported they had coped well during Tuesday’s walkout.
NHS bosses have called on patients to continue using services “wisely,” and agreement has been reached on emergency protocols to allow hospitals to call for junior doctors to go back to work if patients are at risk.
“This is an unprecedented situation and staff across the NHS have made Herculean efforts to ensure continued safe services for patients,” NHS England's Anne Rainsberry said.
According to junior doctors, the British government is stretching resources too thinly and it must invest in more staff.
Figures compiled by NHS England show that 78 percent of junior doctors did not show up for work on Tuesday.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt admitted that “this is likely to be my last big job in politics. The one thing that would keep me awake is if I didn't do the right thing to help make the NHS one of the safest, highest quality healthcare systems in the world.”
More than 125,000 appointments and operations have been called off and have to be rearranged due to the strikes.
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