THOUSANDS OF DOCTORS in Northern Ireland are beginning strike action today as part of a UK wide day of protest over pensions.
The British Government wants doctors to contribute more to their pensions, as it says the public are currently funding 80 per cent of the final pay pots. But the British Medical Association (BMA) claims this is unfair, as they already pay a higher proportion of their salaries into pensions than others in the public sector.
“We negotiated a deal in 2008 that was supposed to last a lifetime,” Peter Maguire, a consultant anaesthetist at Daisy Hill hospital in Newry told TheJournal.ie.
Now we’re being asked to work longer, pay more and get less when we finally retire. It’s a triple whammy.
Under plans drawn up by the British government, doctors could be paying 12.5 per cent of their salaries into pension funds by 2015 compared to 1.5 per cent among many civil servants, reports The Guardian.
It is also planning to raise the retirement age from 60 to 68.
However, doctors say this is unfair.
“It’s your life in our hands and it gets much harder to work as you get older,” adds Maguire.
Not all doctors are taking part in the protests. Only one third of GPs and hospital doctors in the UK are members of the BMA.
Nine members of the British parliament in Westminister are also doctors.
Among them is Conservative Sarah Wallston, who disagrees with the srike action.
Writing in the Daily Express, she says: “it is plain wrong for doctors, who receive among the most generous pensions in the public sector, to put self-interest before vocation.” She continued:
How will those in the minority who decide to put pensions before patients look them in the eye when they resume normal duties?
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