DR MAX: this Insatiable Demand For Higher Doctors' Pay Looks Tawdry Junior medical professionals are threatening to strike once again. So what, you might say? When are they not threatening a walk-out? In the past 2 years, they have taken industrial action 11 times. This makes me actually mad. My medical union, the British Medical Association (BMA), is wasting public regard for doctors, battering realities and pursuing Left-wing crusades with no regard for the expense to the health service. Their pressing needs for higher pay make my occupation, my long-lasting occupation, look tawdry, cynical and money-grubbing. There are minutes when I almost feel I could rip up my membership card in disappointment. But it isn't just my union that is behaving so disgracefully. The real offender is the Labour federal government, whose ineptitude in union negotiations because concerning power has activated a greedy free-for-all. Unless these outrageous demands can be brought under control, I fear the NHS could be bankrupted. The flashpoint this month is the BMA's demand for a pay boost much better than the 4 per cent that was executed on April 1 - an increase the union has actually dismissed as 'derisory'. That 4 percent is currently above the rate of inflation, which is presently performing at 3.5 percent. In truth, the deal used to junior doctors (or 'resident medical professionals', as we're now expected to call them) provides substantially more, as they will get an extra ₤ 750 on top of the uplift, representing a typical increase in salary of 5.4 percent. And it begins top of an enormous 22 per cent typical increase dished out by Health Secretary Wes Streeting last year in a desperate quote to put a stop to the consistent strikes, after they demanded a 30 per cent pay rise.