I was at work, walking between jobs, and I saw a group of
about fifty people assembled on a street corner outside the
Churchill
Hospital. They were carrying
placards and banners; and they received many supportive horn blasts from
passing cars. They are the local contingent of a nationwide strike by nurses.
This does not mean all nurses are walking off their wards; that's unthinkable,
but all those not needed for emergency and essential services are carrying out
a one-day strike. This is the biggest strike in the history of the NHS. The
establishment media has castigated the nurses, claiming they are
"greedy" and "holding the country to ransom!" I am not a
trade unionist and stopped being an active one about a year into my own
service. However, there are times when strikes are justified and this is definitely
one of them. A newly-qualified nurse earns about £27,000 pa. This is after two
or more years on a full time degree course and with a student loan to pay off. This
level has been sub-inflation for as long as I can remember; maybe even before
my own service. When I started, the NHS trained its own nurses with salaried
tuition; not anymore. It is true that a senior sister can earn as much as
£55,000 a year, but this is after more than a decade of wading through blood
and excrement! Would she have the sanity left to enjoy those extra beans? I
know for a fact many do not. It is actually the nastiest of hypocrisy that the
government dares to accuse strikers of being greedy and holding the country to
ransom. They're saying this after virtually blowing the economy out of the
water and ruining the lives of millions because Boris Johnson didn't have the
courage, maturity or self-discipline to tell to the Bill and Melinda Gates
foundation to get stuffed. After all this I'm honestly surprised there are so
many essential workers still at their posts! What happened to all that
clapping? Aren't we "heroes!" anymore? Why is a 19% payrise and a
little bit of basic job security too much to ask for in a service with an
annual budget of £120 billion when the same employer bailed out the banks in
2008 up to over £1.8
trillion, virtually
doubling the national debt overnight!? They did this without hesitation or a
qualm. The Treasury won't even publish the accounts for the cost of Covid 19
vaccination, but as of February this year 116 million shots have been
administered; you do the maths. On top of this you can add on the pings,
warning signs and bulk PPE etc; and all of it lining the pockets of the pharmaceutical
industry, including a statistically high number of Tory donors. So, I salute my
civilian colleagues for taking this action and I wish them all the best.
See here for
background: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2021/02/coronavirus-portal.html.
And: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2015/08/jr-porters-strike-update-2.html.
