'Mick Lynch is inspirational': Frustrated NHS doctor says she'd strike if given the chance

23 June 2022, 15:55 | Updated: 23 June 2022, 15:57

'If nurses and doctors are balloted to strike, I will strike.'

This NHS doctor who backs the RMT's rail strike says she feels "terrible" admitting that if she's balloted to strike, she will.

Last ditch talks between the RMT union and rail bosses failed to stop today's union walk out which has seen much of the country's train services scrapped for a second day.

As negotiations failed yet again, the division became increasingly acrimonious, with the RMT accusing Transport Secretary Grant Shapps of "wrecking" negotiations by refusing to allow Network Rail to withdraw redundancy threats.

Mr Shapps called the claim "a total lie", adding the union was solely to blame for the "massive disruption".

Read more: Rail strike to go ahead: Bitter row erupts as latest round of talks breaks down

Caller Jenny told Shelagh Fogarty: "I support the strike, the RMT. I think that public sector workers need to stand together.

"All public sector workers have been impacted by austerity and wage depression. Whether it's teachers, the courts, people not being able to get their passports because of problems with the number of civil servants...The tories have run down public services very deliberately for ten years."

Jenny continued: "We all need to stick together, and if nurses and doctors are balloted to strike, I will strike."

Shelagh Fogarty asked Jenny how it felt to have said she would strike given that doctors care greatly for their patients.

"Terrible," she replied.

"Mick Lynch, I think, is inspirational, and he makes the point over and over, he's very articulate and plain speaking and honest, and he makes the point that the rail workers don't want to go on strike.

"The argument that's always levelled against us, and I've heard it many times in the discourse over the last few days, is using individual very emotive examples. 'Well, if the rail workers go on strike, people can't get to chemotherapy appointments'. This kind of thing.

"And obviously, that will be amplified 1000% times if nurses and doctors go on strike. They will say 'patients will suffer, patients will die'. But people are dying already!

"People are dying waiting for ambulances. And there are all lots of hidden deaths that people don't see because of deficiencies in the NHS, and some of those deficiencies are caused by staffing problems, problems of retention, problems of low morale."

Read more: Rail strike called under 'false pretences' by RMT's '1970s union baron' boss, says Shapps