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I don’t think you can imagine for a second how I feel today. The BMA has announced that we will strike .

I voted for it, but now the result has been announced it feels a bit unreal. How did you let it come to this?

We honestly don’t have any choice, you know. We didn’t come to the table making unreasonable demands for pay rises and shorter hours.

Jeremy Hunt wrote a contract for us that will remove safeguards that protect us from working longer hours than we already do.

It will reduce pay for those who work in the most difficult jobs, working the hardest, most antisocial hours.

(Image: PA)

Read more:Furious doctors to stage first walk out in the history of the NHS

He brought it to us saying ‘accept it or it will be imposed on you regardless’. It never was a negotiation.

Tired doctors make mistakes – that’s what we all dread.

For some of the papers and for Jeremy Hunt, who seems horribly willing to demonise us and make it seem like we are workshy, an ‘avoidable death’ is a tragedy to hit the headlines or a political stick to beat the NHS with.

For us it is the nightmare that stops us sleeping.

The response to the strike has been one of amazing unification, across our profession that has only been matched by similar action 40 years ago.

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The discussions on the wards have been terrifying - there is likely to be a mass exodus of junior doctors should this unfair and unsafe contract go ahead.

None of us want to strike, but you just don’t understand that, it makes more sense to you to call us ‘militant’.

Can’t you see it’s what we have to do to bring you to your senses?

We have pleaded with you in every way possible to avoid this outcome.

But you have demonised us and lied about us to the media. We have wholly lost faith in you.

(Image: Anthony Devlin/PA)

I voted for the strike, but I don’t want to strike. But like every other medical professional I understand what is going on in the health service.

I see the cutting of costs on the front line and the creeping privatisation.

You can deny it all you like, but the health service is changing for the worse, not better, under your misunderstanding of what our health service is about.

We’ve heard you say you love the NHS. We’ve heard Jeremy Hunt say he cares about patient safety.

Those of us who work here really do love and care about it – and we put that into action every day.

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When I say it is heartbreaking to work under this strain I mean it.

I see friends and colleagues in tears every day, but still putting on a brave face for our patients.

So you have to drop the new contract or we have to strike.

We are fighting for the heart, soul and very future of the NHS as a high quality, comprehensive and universal service.