London, Thanasis Gavos

Both specialist and specialist doctors in the NHS public health system in England have gone on joint three-day strike since Monday morning.

It is the second joint strike by senior and management doctors and their other colleagues within two weeks.

The previous joint strike action was described as “historic” as it was the first general strike by doctors in the history of the NHS.

The administration of the health system is warning patients that non-emergency medical care will essentially cease to be provided.

The British Medical Association, which represents the strikers, has promised that this three-day staffing will be similar to that on Christmas Day, ie adequate medical staff for urgent and very serious cases.

Since last December frequent strikes by doctors, nurses, radiologists and ambulance crews in England have led to the postponement of almost a million appointments and treatments, in some cases even for cancer patients.

The strikers consider the government’s offers of a 6% increase in the salaries of qualified doctors and an average of 8.8% in the salaries of specialists as insufficient.

As they say, a decade of frozen wages means the proposed increases are not making up for lost ground. Specialists are asking for an increase corresponding to 35%, a figure which the Minister for Health Stephen Barclay has described as “absurd”.