Striking junior doctors rally over pay in London

Hospital doctors in England began a new 72-hour strike over pay on Wednesday, prompting warnings from health officials of huge disruption to patients and services. The strike is the latest in the state-funded National Health Service (NHS), which has also seen nurses and other medical staff picket for more pay.

Sumi Manirajan, deputy chair of UK Junior Doctors' Committee said "No junior doctor wants to go on strike. We've been forced to do this. We've been writing to the government for months before we took strike action, they ignored it and we've been pushed to take strike action so the government will hopefully take their head out of the sand and realize that the value that doctors provide isn't worth a 26% paycut."

The British Medical Association's Junior Doctors Committee says medics have seen a 26 percent pay cut in real terms in the last 15 years, as salaries have failed to keep pace with soaring inflation. They want pay restored to 2008-2009 levels but the government says that would mean an average pay award of about 35 percent this year and is too costly. A similar walk-out in April saw 196,000 hospital appointments and operations rescheduled.