In the United Kingdom, the anger of nursing staff continues unabated. This weekend, the head of the profession’s main union, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), announced a new strike movement which could last until Christmas, as a new hardening of strikes approaches at the end of the month, unprecedented in the country. The next strike on April 30 is expected to last 48 hours and for the first time will not spare emergency services or intensive care or cancer units.
With our correspondent in London, Sidoni Gaucher
The hospital staff will continue the strike, and do not mince words regarding their working conditions.
” My job is to regularly take care of dead bodies, clean urine and excrement, blood, vomit, clean the buttocks of patients, lists a man. Something no one wants to do. I do it 12 hours a day for 12-13 pounds a day. »
” But I’ll do it for free more, he adds. You don’t become a nurse to become rich, you do it because deep down inside you, there is this desire to take care of people. But when you live in this capitalist machine, you have to pay the rent, the phone, the transport, the groceries and the student loan, what are we supposed to do? »
And the problem has wider ramifications, as this other nurse explained: Over the past ten years, I have lost a fifth of my purchasing power. There is a shortage of 47,000 nurses in the UK, and if you add to that the low salaries, the consequence is quite simply that people leave the country to earn better elsewhere. Because in the world, the shortage amounts to three million nurses. »
The hospital body therefore rejected on Friday April 14 the 5% increase in salary and the bonus of 1.250 pounds, or 1.425 euros, proposed by the government.
You have voted to reject the NHS pay offer for nursing staff in England.
Next steps:
– Seek urgent talks with UK govt
– 48-hour strike from 8pm 30 April, without exceptions
– England-wide statutory ballot to extend current strike mandateRead more. https://t.co/axQ0oUuMtV
— The RCN (@theRCN) April 14, 2023
►Also read: United Kingdom: passport staff are on strike in turn