Dr Steven Montgomery, who works at The Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, told BBC News NI that the strikes came down to staff retention and pay.
“We’re facing a staffing crisis here in Northern Ireland,” he said. “We’re losing doctors. We’re haemorrhaging them, losing them hand over fist.”
Dr Montgomery, who is a deputy chair of the Northern Ireland junior doctor committee (NIJDC) within the British Medical Association (BMA), said their pay was down 30% since 2006 “if you compare to what we were paid for the same job, the same hours, the same work”.
“We’re not asking for a pay lift, but for our pay to be restored, to be paid the same as what our equivalents got paid in 2008 in real-world terms,” he added.
