Nurses in the UK are on strike over wages, testing a healthcare system in crisis

What’s most troubling for the government – and the public – is that the nurses have just gone on strike, too. The teachers threaten to stop work early in the new year.

Workers in large swaths of the public sector are in open revolt against 12 years of Tory “austerity budgets” and the high cost of living in 2022. Energy prices are so high here that the government has stepped in to reduce and subsidize home heating bills so people don’t freeze in their flats. .

It follows the sacrifice of the previous Tory government, that of Liz Truss, the shortest-serving prime minister in modern British history. She had called for sweeping tax cuts but offered no way to pay for them, resulting in markets reeling and Truss taking an early retirement.

How Liz Truss became the shortest serving Prime Minister in UK history

The British government is now preparing to mobilize 1,200 soldiers to drive ambulances over the holidays. Civil servants from other agencies will be brought in to check passports at border crossings, if necessary.

during the worst years Corona Virus pandemic, millions of ordinary Britons, along with Prime Minister Boris Johnson (who is also gone), stood on their doorsteps during draconian lockdowns to bang pots and pans and clap their hands for National Health Service workers, marking them as heroes on the front lines.

Now the nurses say they need more than applause. They say they are overworked, overworked, underpaid, and want a real raise to keep up with inflation, which is over 10 percent.

“They are taking advantage of us,” said Rachel Ambrose, 40, a mental health nurse who works with children and adolescents in Oxford. “We don’t seek an extravagant lifestyle. We are nurses. We just want to pay our bills. We want the heat.”

Ambrose said that the nurses are “angry, we’re angry, we’re determined,” and that these strikes “will continue because they ignore us.”

She cited staff shortages in the NHS that were undermining patient care and had nurses at a breaking point. Sick days have gone up since the pandemic — and so have nurses leaving the profession or moving abroad.

UK nurses struggling to pay bills say strike is for the future of healthcare

The public health system in Britain suffers from a shortage of fifty thousand nurses. Half of all new hires today come from overseas because the UK either can’t train enough at home or pays too little to attract new workers. Brexit also halted the flow of “free movement” of nurses from Eastern Europe to Britain.

The government says the average nurse’s salary is now 35,600 Egyptian pounds ($43,300). New nurses are paid lower salaries; Experienced nurses with specialized skills earn higher salaries; Overtime also increases salaries.

Nurses earn higher wages in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Germany and Spain. British nurses, though, earn more than their counterparts in France and Italy.

After one of the worst strike weeks in modern British history, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s new government still refuses to come to the negotiating table with unions, calling salary increases “unaffordable” and warning that the government must keep wages Check inflation.

The government supports a modest salary increase for paramedics and nurses – as recommended by independent wage review bodies – of about 4.75 per cent. The Nurses Union is calling for an increase of 19 percent.

On Monday, Sunak’s spokesman told reporters that “it would be irresponsible to proceed with a double-digit payout.”

Britain’s trains have been halted in the biggest railway strike in 30 years

But Sunak and his cabinet ministers are learning that it is one thing to fight the railway workers and their “union bosses”, as the government calls them, and another to fight the nurses. The railway strikes caused frustrating crises for urban commuters and holiday travelers – highlighted by anti-union tabloids. Nurses, on the other hand, are revered. A YouGov survey this month found that 64 percent The British supported the nurses’ strike.

On Monday, Sunak called an emergency cabinet meeting to lay out plans to keep vital national services running in the country, while putting the army on alert.

About 10,000 ambulance workers in England and Wales are set to go on strike on Wednesday. Members of the Royal College Nurses Union walked out on Thursday and are heading to picket lines again Tuesday.

Nurses who work in emergency rooms have remained on the job, but hospitals are struggling to keep staff for essential care. Many routine procedures, exams, non-emergency surgeries and other treatments have been delayed.

Some heart attack or stroke victims wait nearly an hour on average for ambulances – compared to the target of 18 minutes.

In the offices of neighborhood doctors, where most patients see their GP and nurses, the staff describes a system in crisis due to chronic underfunding and a shortage of workers.

Anthony Johnson, 29, a cardiologist in Leeds, is among those backing the Royal College of Nursing’s decision to withdraw for the first time in its 106-year history.

We haven’t had wage increases that keep up with inflation. This is why you see nurses going to food banks and the number of job vacancies has increased exponentially. “We have horrible nurse-patient ratios. Our clinical guidance is one nurse for eight patients, but we don’t generally meet that. In fact, it’s one nurse for 13 patients, so it’s consistently unsafe and it puts patients at risk.”

He loves to work in Britain and will stay. He warned that many are looking abroad.

“We train the nurses to export, usually to Canada, Australia and New Zealand… where the nurses can make an extra 10,000 pounds.” [$12,200]Johnson said. Instead of investing in our staff, the UK government is stealing nurses from other parts of the world. They cut wages and let that happen.”

Julia Patterson, founder of Every Doctor, a campaign group representing 1,200 British doctors, said her doctors “are really supportive and will collaborate to keep patients safe in the absence of nurses. They’re going to have to work incredibly hard, but they’re supporting their colleagues in doing that.”

She noted that doctors are also being voted on whether to strike in the new year.

“People are dying from a failure of public health,” Patterson said.