'We have 500 deaths like him every week': UK medical students on strike
Before the interns (medical students), it was the nurses of the British National Health Service who were on strike, here during a demonstration in London, January 18, 2023. REUTERS - TOBY MELVILLE
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2 mins
After the nurses and the paramedics, it is the turn of the interns of the National Health Service (NHS), the British public health service, to go on strike.
These caregivers who are still medical students represent half of the medical staff.
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With our correspondent in London,
Marie Boëda
No less than 60,000 medical interns are expected to picket this Monday for a three-day mobilization that begins today.
They denounce the decline in their standard of living for fifteen years and increasingly worrying working conditions.
Andrew fell in love with the NHS but for this young American-born intern and doctor in an emergency department, this system is collapsing.
Blame it on government policies over the past ten years: “
We are overflowing with rage.
We withdrew 450 billion euros from the health system.
Ten years ago, our public hospital was the best on the planet.
We no longer want to watch our patients and our colleagues suffer.
»
3 p.m. for an ambulance
More than seven million people are on a care waiting list, the longest in NHS history.
Andrew regularly participates in rallies in the capital to warn about the lack of resources, caregivers and the dramatic consequences.
“
A good day is when no one dies in a waiting room or in an ambulance
,” he says.
Some sometimes wait 15 hours for an ambulance, even when it is an emergency.
The young doctor recalls a recent case: “
A patient had a heart attack and we had to resuscitate him in the hospital parking lot, all because of the waiting times.
He is dead.
He was in his thirties, he should be alive today.
It's terrifying, we have 500 deaths like him every week in this country.
»
Doctors desert the public hospital for the private one.
It lacks 9000, deplores the union of interns.
Andrew will never leave the NHS and he will strike today.
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