Resident doctors take strike action over pay

Resident doctors are taking part in an industrial action in a dispute over pay.

The 24-hour industrial action began at 07:00 BST on Monday and will end at 06:59 on Tuesday.

It comes after consultants and specialist doctors went on strike last week - the first time for these two groups of doctors in Northern Ireland.

Health Minister Mike Nesbitt said he remained committed to implementing this year's pay award but was currently unable to do so in the absence of an agreed budget.

Dr David Farren, chairman of the BMA's Northern Ireland consultants committee, said the resident doctor strike would be a "full walk out" rather than Christmas Day cover as it was for Thursday's strike.

He said consultants and specialist, associate specialist and speciality doctors will make sure that emergency and urgent care is prioritised.

Picket line demonstrations are taking place at the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) in Belfast, Craigavon Area Hospital and Altnagelvin Hospital in Londonderry.

Speaking on the picket line at the RVH on Monday, Dr Steven Montgomery, chairman of the BMA's Northern Ireland resident doctors committee, said everyone is "furious at the situation".

"Our pay since 2008 has decreased by over 20%, and that's why everybody is out today.

"This DDRB (The Doctors' and Dentists' Review Body) award of 3.5% does not go far enough to restore us back to those previous 2008 levels."

"We did a survey recently of penultimate and final year medical students, over 54% of our medical students here in Northern Ireland have told us that they are not planning to work here in Northern Ireland," he added.

He said he believed that if things did not change, "the NHS in Northern Ireland ceases to exist".

The BMA balloted its members over a four-week period after doctors' leaders rejected a recommended 3.5% pay uplift from an independent pay body.

Earlier this month it was announced that 92% of resident doctors voted yes and 79% of consultants voted for strike action.

The BMA also said 90% of SAS doctors voted in favour of strike action.

Both branches of practice voted in favour of industrial action in what they said was "over 18 years of pay erosion" and rejected the 3.5% pay rise.

SAS doctors are fully qualified doctors who work permanently with the healthcare team in their chosen area of medicine.

Dr Helen Kerr, a resident doctor in emergency medicine at Altnagelvin Hospital, said doctors felt they had been "forced into this after years of sub-inflationary pay uplifts".

She said she understands this will have a knock-on effect for many patients and said they have not come to this decision lightly.

"Our health service is already operating with unsafe levels of staffing for the number of patients that need that care and staff leaving over poor pay and workplace conditions is a main driver of the waiting list crisis," she told BBC Radio Foyle's North West Today programme.

She said they have been open to conversations with the health minister to resolve the dispute but there has been "no credible negotiations offered".

Orla Murray will be leaving for Australia in August.

"The amount of hours we are doing, the amount of overtime. We don't get that pay back," she said.

"I'm moving to Australia to start working over there as a doctor. I've always wanted to go, but given the current state of how doctors are being treated at the minute, it's kind of my only option to go.

"I had no choice in the end."

Hannah Patterson was also at the picket line.

"This is not just about pay. It's about conditions," she said.

"This is the only way to show people that we want things to be better. We want things to be better for us, for our colleagues and our patients."

Kiana Newman-Zand and Adam McConnell said morale is "very low".

"Doctors are leaving to go elsewhere, Australia, New Zealand," Newman-Zand said.

"Better pay and better conditions. It's only going to get worse."

Adam McConnell added: "I've been a doctor for a number of years and it's the hardest it's been. We are haemorrhaging doctors."

Dr Steven Montgomery, BMA's Northern Ireland resident doctors committee chair, said the "better pay and better working conditions on offer in other countries means we are losing doctors when we really need to do all we can to keep doctors working here".

He said the "growing patient numbers without the necessary number of doctors needed to meet this demand and pressure" was a "perfect storm for our health service".

"We did not think we would have to take strike action again so soon after the last walk-outs, but we were left with no choice.

"The onus is now firmly on government to engage urgently and meaningfully and present a credible way forward to avert strike action," Montgomery said.

Farren added: "Doctors in Northern Ireland are lowest paid in these islands and we have been trying to work with the minister and the department of health to rectify that, to get what he terms 'pay parity'.

"Unfortunately, despite all of that, we continue to not have pay parity and, as a result, we have been forced after years of negotiations to take unprecedented strike action."

Last week, the health minister said to go beyond the 3.5% as recommended by the independent pay review recommendation would have "significant repercussions for nurses, teachers, police officers and indeed the entire public sector workforce".

"I reiterate my commitment to ensuring HSC colleagues receive their recommended 26-27 pay uplifts, despite the unprecedented shortfall as indicated in my draft budget," he said.

"There is simply no scope for pay awards beyond the recommendations of the review bodies in 26-27."

Farren said there would "undoubtedly be cancellation of operations, of outpatient appointments and elective care" but patient safety would "still be prioritised".

He said it was a "very difficult decision" to go on strike.

"I have seen hospital consultants that I work with just simply either burning out or deciding for their own health and well being to move to another county and practice medicine, the rest of us left behind have to shoulder that responsibility - it cannot go on.

"This is an existential threat to our health service," Farren said.