UK Cancels Thousands of Hospital Appointments Due to Junior Doctors' Strike - Reports

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th March, 2023) Tens of thousands of hospital patient appointments and surgeries in the United Kingdom have been canceled due to a strike by junior doctors over low wages and burnout in the heels of recent walkouts by nurses and ambulance staff, British media reported Monday.

The three-day strike, starting Monday and uniting about 61,000 trainee doctors in pursuit of a 26% pay rise, may disrupt the UK National Health Service (NHS), The Guardian reported. According to the newspaper, NHS departments have currently postponed far more appointments and surgeries than during recent strikes by nurses and ambulance staff.

"What worries me most is that there'll be fewer medical rounds on the wards than usual ... Therefore patients whose health is deteriorating could get missed," a hospital chief executive told The Guardian.

Nevertheless, the same unnamed medical official was quoted as saying that they supported the strike, believing that junior doctors should "be paid more because they do a hell of a lot of hard work and they do it under a lot of stress and pressure.

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For many months, the UK's NHS has suffered from a severe shortage of health care workers. More and more people have been leaving the profession amid excessive workloads, rising prices and a lack of opportunities to upgrade their skills. Thousands of UK ambulance workers have repeatedly staged protests during the winter, demanding higher wages amid surging inflation in the country. The UK government has formally asked for help from the military to keep medical facilities running during the strikes. Other health care workers, including nurses, physical rehabilitation specialists, paramedics and their assistants also joined the strikes.