Editorial: Doctors do deserve a better overall package but should not be taking strike action

​Junior doctors go on strike today in Northern Ireland because they say their pay deal is not adequate.

They will get a rise of between 9% and 10% but say that they deserve far more.

The complaints of physicians in Northern Ireland are many and are too complex to explain in detail here.

There is no doubt that there is a problem in retaining doctors in the UK, who can earn more and enjoy better working conditions abroad such as in Australia.

There are also specific medical grievances related to NI that you hear little about, such as the way in which senior doctors who commit their huge expertise to the NHS have been robbed of merit awards, slashing their pay and meaning that the handful of leading doctors who earned akin to a high court judge now no earn much less.

These doctors could earn far more in the private sector yet their work for the health service was not properly rewarded. It was an act of Stormont cowardice a decade or so ago to do that to trim that money when it is so profligate in other areas.

But, while doctors are the lynchpin of any health system, they are on the whole reasonably paid, with established consultants and GPs often earning six figures – as they should.

The lot of the junior doctor has always been a challenging one, as they learn their vital profession. They now earn far better than they did 20 years ago, in real terms.

Doctors should only withhold their labour in the most extreme of circumstances, and this is not such a situation.

Much of the difficulty in their working conditions is due to MLAs refusing to reform health provision in NI, as many experts have urged them to do. This means the NHS is much less efficient than it should be.

Meanwhile, cross-party Stormont support for recent strikes has only made industrial action more likely.