Junior doctors protested at the entrance to the Royal Cornwall Hospital (Treliske) on June 27, joining 25,000 junior doctors across in the NHS in England in five days of strike action.

Passing traffic honked in support as the protesters waved placards stating “Claps don’t pay the bills”, “Stop the burnout” and “Under-staffed, over-worked, underpaid”.

This is the eleventh round of strikes by junior doctors in England since March 23. after the British Medical Association (BMA) is seeking a 35 per cent pay rise, which it describes as full pay restoration to reverse the steep decline in pay faced by its members since 2008/09.

The BMA is also calling for a government mechanism to prevent future salary decline against the cost-of-living and inflation, and reform of the DDRB (Doctors' and Dentists' Review Body) process so pay increases can be recommended independently and fairly.

This, it claims, is crucial to safeguard the recruitment and retention of junior doctors.

Junior doctor Dr Dominic Ridgewell, representing the BMA in Cornwall and Devon, said: “This is a retention crisis caused by pay cut after pay cut, meaning a junior doctor has lost more than 25 per cent of pay since 2008.

“The issue is worse in our region, because rural and coastal communities suffer more from a lack of doctors. I know a married couple, both junior doctors, who are spending half their earnings on rent and childcare, and have gone part-time to keep the latter costs down.

“Medicine is a childhood dream for many of us, and we go through an arduous process to get into and through medical school. So it has to reach a crisis point for people to want to leave. This is that point.

“I cannot remember a time when so many early-career junior doctors were actively considering leaving the profession, or even the country. I just want the amazing doctors I work alongside to stay living and working here for the rest of their careers.

Dr Ridgewell said picket lines acted as a visible sign of the strike and had received “overwhelming public support”. The work of striking junior doctors is being covered by consultants and other senior colleagues, often at a higher cost to the service.

He added that the term “junior” was a misnomer, with many doctors at that level might be specialists in their field, providing emergency care, carrying out operations or guiding patients through cancer treatment.

The path to a higher grade can take many years, and student debts of £100,000 are not unusual.

“We are not doing it to harm the communities we live in,” he said. “We are doing it because we care about those communities.

“Successive governments have borrowed off the goodwill of staff. This situation is untenable.”