Featured Image Credit: Credit: @souramoo/Twitter
Topics: NHS
Ellie Kemp
A British doctor with nearly a decade of experience left people outraged after sharing his wage slip.
Souradip Mookerjee, based in London, took to X to reveal the grim reality of working as a healthcare professional.
He spoke out in February, when junior doctors were once again striking over a long-running pay dispute between the British Medical Association (BMA) union and the government.
Posting a screenshot via his X account,@souramoo, Mookerjee explained: "My salary as a doctor in London working 40h weeks after 9 years of uni at Cambridge and a phd #BMADoctorsVoteYes".
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The payslip showed an initial payment of £2,680.84 ($3,585.76).
But after tax and other deductibles, Mookerjee takes home just £1,671.47 ($2,231.81) each month.
For context, the average rent in London is £935 a month (roughly $1,250) - which doesn't leave Mookerjee with much to live on.
People were so taken aback by the measly pay, they asked Mookerjee about the taxes he's paying.
He responded with a screenshot of the breakdown, which showed just his national insurance - the tax Brits pay for universal healthcare via the National Health Service (NHS), pension deductions and student loan.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
One person asked: "Is there a London weighting? £1671 would only just cover rent and public transport in London," to which Mookerjee replied: "This is including London weighting and you are correct."
Another person shared their own payslip as a first-year junior doctor. Only, this was from 13 years ago in 2010.
And shockingly, their wage was marginally more than Mookerjee's, at £1677.02.
Another person weighed in: "For reference, this is only £200 more than I was paid in my first job 25 years ago AND I was provided with free hospital accommodation AND no tuition fees.
"Utterly, utterly unacceptable."
Another commented: "This is outrageous! I cannot believe that a highly educated, highly skilled person with such huge responsibility can be paid so little.
"You and everyone who works in the NHS deserve so much more."
And a fellow graduate with a similar experience wrote: "Eight years of university got me pretty much the same upon graduation, wages are depressed as hell across the board and having a PhD gets you sod all it seems.
"Sometimes think I would have been better off bringing my swimming badges into the interview."