Fed up with a government he says doesn’t care, Poh Wang plans to go on strike with tens of thousands of other British junior doctors next week, saying he is overworked, underpaid and burdened with a student loan he cannot imagine paying off.
The 28-year-old says he and his colleagues have been pushed to the brink after below-inflation pay rises collided with the surging cost of living to leave him questioning how he can ever pay off his more than 85,000 pounds ($101,000) of student debt.
On top of that, he remains incensed at his treatment during the pandemic, when he felt powerless to cope with the onslaught of patients arriving in hospital with COVID-19 symptoms – saying public displays of support did not pay the bills.
He joins junior doctors across England who will go on strike on March 13 for three days, protesting over pay and burnout that risks driving staff out of the health service as it tackles record-high patient waiting lists.
“We’ve reached a boiling point where we have had enough,” said Wang – a council member of the British Medical Association (BMA), which represents doctors and medical students.
“The anger is palpable that we have been used and abused and devalued to this extent.”
The son of Chinese immigrants who ran a takeaway restaurant in Chester, northern England, Wang became a doctor because he enjoyed helping people. Having attended medical school for six years, he has worked for five, two in specialty training as a psychiatry doctor.
Junior doctors are qualified physicians, often with several years of experience, who work under the guidance of senior doctors and represent a large part of the country’s medical community.
He is paid around 40,000 pounds a year for his base 40 hours a week, and works additional hours which can add up to around 48 hours a week. He rents a room in a shared flat in west London, an option that can cost around 1,000 pounds a month.
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