Junior doctors in England in the British Medical Association (BMA) and doctors’ union HCSA began a 72-hour strike on 13 March, with young, lively and angry picket lines and protests. 8,000 protested at Downing Street on the first day of the strike.
Socialist Party members visited picket lines to offer solidarity and discuss the way forward.
Eleanor Dunne reports that the chants at a lively Basildon Hospital picket line included “Pay restoration now” and “Claps are not enough”. Pickets at the main entrance were not moved away by management, which contrasts with the last strike when they were moved completely off hospital land.
“If we don’t get a result on pay, I’m off!” This was how a young BMA striker at Southampton summed up the staffing crisis to Nick Chaffey. He explained that between a third and a half of junior doctors are leaving. Others said: “Our pay is low, £14 an hour, so we are doing extra shifts as locums just to make ends meet. There aren’t enough of us now. Without improved pay it’s going to get worse.”
“I come out with £8 an hour after the student loan is taken off,” a junior doctor at Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham told Gary Freeman. At Lincoln County Hospital, strikers told Heather Rawling: “We’re at breaking point. The government is deliberately running down the NHS to privatise it.”
A striker at Birmingham Children’s Hospital told Nick Hart: “I can’t afford to have kids – the cost of childcare would be more than what I’m paid.”
At Gateshead Queen Elizabeth Hospital, one of the junior doctors told Elaine Brunskill she had been unsure if their strike would get public backing, and got a “fuzzy feeling” when passing traffic was clearly supportive.
