Senior health experts have warned patients will face 10 days of “difficulties and disruptions” from next week as a 96-hour strike by tens of thousands of junior doctors across England begins.
Up to 60,000 doctors are eligible for a four-day union action starting Tuesday, April 11 at 7 am and ending on Saturday, April 15 at 7 am. Consultants say the effects of the strike will be felt much longer as it takes place between the Easter holidays and the following weekend.
Hospitals will contact patients from Monday to postpone procedures. More than 200,000 appointments and surgeries are expected to be canceled as a result of this promotion. No sabbaticals are foreseen, meaning areas such as emergency care, resuscitation, and cancer treatment will remain open.
Dr. Nick Scriven, a Yorkshire consultant and former president of the Society for Emergency Medicine, told me: I: “It will be a real problem to keep the flow in hospitals, because in fact with a holiday, a strike, and then a weekend, there will be 10 days in a row with fewer staff.
“As far as I know consultants are ready and willing to collectively roll up their sleeves again, but there will still be a risk of fatigue to be considered in the rush to make amends to get these missed appointments/operations.” again in progress.
“The service will expand, but a lot depends on whether and how much [operations] canceled and when those consultants are released to help out in departments to help out the rest of the leadership team.”
The public should not “be in any doubt that patients will stop suffering” if the four-day strike continues next week, another senior NHS official warned.
Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers, said patients are at “increased safety risk” as a result of recent medical strikes. He urged junior doctors and the government to return to the negotiating table in time to prevent the strike from continuing.
Sir Julian said I“No one should doubt the destruction and suffering of patients as this strike continues. Again, Trust executives are doing everything in their power to limit the impact, but the timing and length of the strike will result in even more delayed meetings and procedures, as well as increased security risk.
“No one wins – not the patients, not the staff, and certainly not the NHS. There is still time for both sides – the government and the unions – to get out of the abyss. They must redouble their efforts to find a quick solution to this devastating dispute.”
Health Minister Steve Barclay is expected to write a letter to the British Medical Association (BMA) on Monday to start a new round of talks. The BMA is campaigning for higher wages and says wages have fallen 26.1% in real terms since 2008. A 35.3 percent increase in wages is needed to achieve their goal.
Hospital leaders have warned that a strike by junior NHS doctors will jeopardize the safety of people arriving at emergency rooms and delay the treatment of critically ill patients.
In a letter to Sunday Timeswrites the Shelford Group, which includes hospital executives in London, Cambridge, Oxford, Sheffield, Birmingham, Newcastle and Manchester: “The impact of these strikes on patient care will be significant and significantly larger in scale than previous rounds of industrial action. We are now entering the fifth month of strikes by several workers, and each round of strikes has increased impact and opportunity costs.”
The CEOs said the timing of the strike is particularly problematic as it takes place just after the long Easter weekend. Hospital leaders will have to “reduce or eliminate much of our planned work.”
The letter added: “At our ten trusts alone, we estimate we will be postponing tens of thousands of clinic visits, diagnostic tests and surgeries. National numbers will far exceed that.”
The previous three-day strike by young doctors in March resulted in the cancellation of 175,000 appointments and procedures. Overall, more than 300,000 people have been affected since the beginning of December as a result of actions taken by medical professionals, including nurses and paramedics.
NHS consultants fear patients will die in the next strike of junior doctors, MPs were told last week. Shadow Health Minister Wes Streeting told the House of Commons: “Patients are sick, consultants have written to me fearing for the safety of patients. They are afraid that the patients will die from it.”
A strike on Monday by members of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) across Northern Ireland has been suspended. This follows an offer from the Northern Ireland Health Minister to meet with the RCM and other unions this week to discuss pay. RCM will also suspend the action pending a planned strike from April 3rd to 10th.
Source: I News
I’m Raymond Molina, a professional writer and journalist with over 5 years of experience in the media industry. I currently work for 24 News Reporters, where I write for the health section of their news website. In my role, I am responsible for researching and writing stories on current health trends and issues. My articles are often seen as thought-provoking pieces that provide valuable insight into the state of society’s wellbeing.