Junior doctor Kirat Panesar expalins why she and her colleagues walked out this week:

Junior doctors are striking this week, the first ever full walkout in NHS history. An overwhelming 98 per cent of BMA voters opted for strike.

At the heart of it is a genuine concern about the future safety of the NHS which is currently clinging on for dear life.

Mr Hunt's rhetoric is a seven day NHS; the funny thing is I've worked endless Saturdays and Sundays since I qualified, constituting an already existing seven day workforce. So what's actually driving the changes?

There is no doubt that if the contract is imposed the NHS will crumble. Current staffing levels are simply dire, so to spread them even thinner to cover seven days is criminal.

Many hospitals are already struggling to fill gaps in their rota, meaning existing doctors take on the workload of more than one.

A typical day for many already involves regularly staying late, unpaid, to ensure patients are safe. Much of the NHS is currently surviving on this unpaid goodwill.

Further stretching our existing workforce will mean mistakes will become unavoidable. And on the receiving end will be you, me or one of our loved ones. No doctor wants this on their hands.

There are many other aspects of this new contract which have evoked emotions of frustration and demoralisation; increased unsocial hours, reduced pay (despite claims this has increased) and reduced safeguards against overworking amongst others. In any case, the result is the same: compromised patient safety.

The government's own equality analysis very openly states that the new contract will 'impact disproportionately on women'. It almost feels like the entire contract is purposefully created to agitate and alienate doctors. Maybe this is the intended aim?

Various links are continuously emerging between politicians and private healthcare companies, making a privatisation agenda increasingly plausible. It's a lucrative investment for those involved. Unfortunately, at the expense of your health.

Whilst doctors believe that healthcare needs to improve, privatisation is not the answer as evidenced by the diabolical health outcomes in the USA.

Junior doctors remain proud that we deliver a free healthcare system and want to make it work. Therefore the reasons for why this contract is being imposed needs to be made transparent. As following imposition, anybody using the NHS will become collateral damage.

And while doctors are blamed for its downfall, private companies will swoop in to 'save the day'.

Now ask yourself this, can you afford private healthcare insurance? If not, now is the time for each of us to fight for our NHS.

No doctor has taken the decision to strike lightly, but we are finding ourselves in increasingly compromised situations of an underfunded, understaffed, overstretched workplace. Furthermore, the enforcement of this new contract has visions of pure destruction written all over it.