FERMANAGH patients have been warned that the health service will experience widespread disruption this week due to the two-day junior doctors’ strike.
Junior doctors in Northern Ireland are staging the industrial action after pay talks with the Department of Health broke down earlier this year. The strike action will take place from 7am today (Wednesday) to 7am on Friday.
In a statement, the Department of Health warned of the inconvenience patients may suffer at the likes of the SWAH in Enniskillen and reiterated its stance on the issue.
“HSC Trusts will work to mitigate the impact as much as possible. Significant disruption is expected not only on the two strike days but over the following days,” the statement read.
“The Department stands ready to continue discussions with the NI Junior Doctors Committee [NIJDC] and does not accept that talks have ‘collapsed’.
“There are important issues of substance to be progressed, including reform of the current junior doctor contract in NI. The Department has offered a process of independent arbitration, but this has not been taken up to date.
“When the ballot for industrial action was launched, junior doctors – like the rest of the NI health service staff – had received no pay award for 2023/24.
“That is no longer the case. The 2023/24 recommendations of the national pay review body, the DDRB, have now been implemented in NI. The award will be paid in the June pay run, landing in pay packets next month.
“For junior doctors in Northern Ireland, it will bring an average pay increase of 9.07 per cent, with those in their first year receiving a 10.68 per cent uplift.”
However, NIJDC chair Dr Fiona Griffin said doctors had been left with “no choice”, but to take industrial action.
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