Junior doctors at Bradford hospitals have said they would be willing to strike as part of a national campaign for better overtime pay and conditions.

All 43 junior doctors who attended a meeting at Bradford Royal Infirmary yesterday said they would be prepared to take action.

But leaders of the British Medical Association campaign stressed if the dispute between them and the Government went as far as strike action, emergency hospital services would be maintained.

However, a strike at hospitals across the country - including BRI and St Luke's Hospital - would see juniors withdraw from planned surgery and treatment which was not an emergency.

The dispute is over the way junior doctors are paid, which means after the first 40 hours of work a week, the majority are paid only 50 per cent - about £4 - of their usual hourly rate.

Campaigners said the long hours they work jeopardise patient care and their own health.

One junior doctor, who asked not to be named, said: "Cleaners get paid more than us. After tax I take home about £2,000 a month but I work an average of 70 hours a week."

Another, who also asked not to be identified, said: "The first week I was here I worked 96 hours but was paid for 62 and worked two 24-hour shifts with no sleep. I lost a stone in weight in five weeks."

Dr Ian Wilson, chairman of the Yorkshire regional junior doctors' committee who spoke at the meeting, said: "It's insulting that some people in this room are paid £4.02 an hour for working weekends, Bank Holidays, the Millennium and Christmas."

He said a ballot on taking industrial and strike action was likely to take place on September 24 and urged them to write to their MPs.

A statement from Bradford Hospitals NHS Trust - which runs BRI and St Luke's - said they were working closely with junior doctors to find ways of improving their working hours and living conditions.

Doctors should not work more than 56 hours a week but a junior doctor at BRI said some of them clock up between 80 and 90 hours a week.

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