LONDON: Junior doctors at English hospitals staged a third strike on Wednesday in protest at proposed new conditions and pay rates for working unsociable hours.
Around 5,000 treatments have been postponed in the latest action by junior doctors, who were providing only emergency care during the 48-hour strike in the longest walkout so far.
It comes a day after talks with the British Medical Association, the country’s trade union for doctor, broke down on Tuesday as the government plans to impose the new contracts in the summer.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he had to take the dramatic action as doctors were holding him to “ransom,” the BBC reported.
But polling by IPSOS MORI suggested that most of the public blamed the government for the dispute with 65 percent of the 860 people approached for the BBC-commissioned survey supporting the strike.
The main point of dispute between doctors and the government is over whether Saturday should be classed and paid as a normal working day.
Prime Minister David Cameron’s center-right government says the reforms are needed to fulfil his manifesto promise of a “seven-day NHS,” with a consistent level of care provided at all times.
The government cites eight studies in five years that show weekend mortality rates are higher.
The striking doctors contend that rates are higher on weekends because those who are admitted tend to be emergency cases.
The next two strikes are planned for April.
Johann Malawana, the BMA’s junior doctor leader, disputed Hunt’s claims, saying “the government has left junior doctors with no choice.
Doctors stage 3rd strike in English hospitals
Doctors stage 3rd strike in English hospitals
Two family members of Mexico’s education secretary killed in shooting
MEXICO CITY: Authorities in the western Mexican state of Colima said they killed three people suspected in the shooting deaths of two family members of Mexico’s secretary of education on Saturday.
Colima, located on Mexico’s Pacific coast, is one of the country’s most violent states. It recorded the highest homicide rate in Mexico in 2023 and 2024, according to the US State Department.
The local prosecutor’s office said officers killed three suspects in the 4:30 am (1030 GMT) shooting of two women, whom Mexico’s Secretary of Public Education Mario Delgado later identified as his aunt and cousin.
They did not identify a motive in the shooting or say whether they were searching for other suspects.
“Deep shock, outrage, and sorrow over the events that occurred this morning in Colima, where my aunt Eugenia Delgado and my cousin Sheila were brutally murdered in their home,” Delgado wrote on X on Saturday.
Officials tracked the suspects’ vehicle to a Colima home on Saturday afternoon and killed three people in a gunfight, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Investigators found weapons and clothing in the suspects’ home linked to the double shooting.
Delgado was appointed education secretary by President Claudia Sheinbaum in 2024. He previously served as national president of the ruling Morena party.
