A junior doctor described the scenes in hospitals as a "warzone" or "natural disaster", warning there won't be anybody to perform C-sections if the crisis continues.
More than 45,000 junior doctors could walk out on strike for 72 hours in March if members of the British Medical Association (BMA) vote in favour of industrial action in a ballot closing on February 20. Junior doctors are guaranteed an annual pay rise of 2%, far below the rate at which prices are rising.
This gap has seen the real terms value of junior doctors' pay fall 26.1% since 2008. Meanwhile, junior doctors have to fork out thousands of pounds to pay for mandatory training, exams and membership of professional bodies. The BMA is demanding the government restore pay to the level of 15 years ago in an attempt to retain "colleagues who we are haemorrhaging out of the system", according to Latifa Patel, chair of the BMA's representative body, and a junior doctor who trained in Liverpool.
