A pediatric nurse fears unnecessary patient deaths due to a lack of staff as low wages and poor working conditions put her colleagues out of work.
Jody Elliott, one of the nurses planning to go on strike next month, said low pay means teams can’t hire and retain enough nurses.
To make ends meet on her own, the 33-year-old woman waived her pension contributions.
“The National Health Service has been eroded under my feet for years,” she says. “Now it’s getting to the point where it’s normal for people to not have reliable staff at work.
“As nurses, we look around and see that the situation is untenable. We can’t keep nurses, we can’t hire nurses. It mostly has to do with the amount we get.”
She said she understands why nurses leave the profession. “This is a big responsibility, a lot of stress. He burned a lot of people for little money.
Ms Elliott, who works in London, said: “If I do something wrong, the worst thing that can happen is the death of a child. So this is an act of responsibility that my colleagues and I are taking on, and we understand that.
“We are people who care about others… unfortunately, mistakes happen. We do our best and we have systems in place to avoid these mistakes where possible, and my colleagues and I have a pretty good track record of treating patients safely.
“But what worries me is that when people are really struggling financially, my colleagues and I are under more and more pressure at work and at home. I’m really scared… that means more mistakes will happen, and more avoidable mistakes will happen, just because people are trying to do more other people’s work.”
Responding to criticism that the strikes will increase the number of patients waiting for treatment, Ms Elliott said: “If nothing happens now and we don’t make concrete changes to actively hire and retain more nurses, then I can do it from about 99 the percentage of confidence that ensures that the backlog will widen because we simply don’t have the staff to cover it.
Other nurses said they lived month after month and had no choice but to go on strike about their plight.
Pat Lawlor, a registered NHS nurse for 22 years, said his salary is so low that he has lost £10,000 in real terms over the past decade.
But the 55-year-old’s household spending has “gone out of control due to inflation.”
“My partner and our three daughters live month after month, we haven’t holidayed outside the UK for over 12 years and we’re worried about heating and food bills,” said Mr Lawlor, a neonatology nurse based in Belfast.
“I also voted to strike because salaries, poor staffing and underinvestment in our National Health Service are destroying my work and our healthcare system. It’s not just about my personal and family circumstances, but the fact that the NHS is a social safety net for the most vulnerable.”
Along with other nurses from England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Mr Lawlor voted to join Britain’s first Royal College of Nursing (RCN) strike now announced for 15-20 December. This comes after the government said the RCN’s call for a 19 percent pay rise was prohibitive.
Despite a salary increase of around £1,400 over the summer, experienced nurses have been 20% worse off in real terms as prices have been consistently below inflation since 2010, according to RCN.
A Sheffield cancer nurse, who asked not to be named, said the strike was “long overdue”.
“Voting on a strike over wages is an attempt to get some back [the pay] Over the years, we have lost trust due to the difficult work,” she said.
“Month after month, I struggle with paying bills, my mortgage, grocery shopping… and I miss a lot of things.”
The nurse said that she hadn’t made the decision to strike lightly. “It will only get worse if we don’t strike. Patient safety is already at risk, but it will only get worse if we do nothing.”
She urged the government to fully fund the NHS and prioritize staffing.
There are 47,000 nursing jobs in the UK NHS alone, according to RCN. Last year, 25,000 UK nurses left the Council of Nurses and Midwives’ roster, according to RCN.
The strike was also supported by Professor Stacey Johnson, a registered nurse and academic at the University of Nottingham who trains nurses.
“I send my students there. They qualify, they’re so excited, and then two years after qualifying, you see they’re crushed and in financial trouble.
“They have a day off, and they are called up due to a lack of personnel, their bosses beg for them.
“They are already working 12-hour shifts…they are late for one, two, three hours beyond the contractual time.”
Source: I News
I’m Raymond Molina, a professional writer and journalist with over 5 years of experience in the media industry. I currently work for 24 News Reporters, where I write for the health section of their news website. In my role, I am responsible for researching and writing stories on current health trends and issues. My articles are often seen as thought-provoking pieces that provide valuable insight into the state of society’s wellbeing.