More than 20,000 doctors in Germany have begun a week-long strike over pay and conditions

Their representatives said the escalating dispute would affect nearly 37 university hospitals and clinics across the country. They’re seeking a wage hike of 30 percent, arguing that they’ve had to work millions of hours a year for which they were not paid. “This everlasting power struggle between the states and the doctors, back and forth, back and forth, it´s all at the expense of the patients and it gets on our nerves,” says this striker. State employers have offered 16 percent more pay in exchange for extending weekly working hours from to 38 and a half to 42 hours. But this was rejected by the doctors who said it would work out as a rise of just over one percent.

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