THE RCN picket outside St Thomas’ hospital opposite Parliament in central London on Tuesday was joined by hundreds of nurses, hospital staff, doctors, and ambulance staff along with teachers, railway workers and other workers.
The striking nurses were met with overwhelming support as a crowd cheering them formed near the picket.
Angie, 28 said: ‘We are the last people that want to strike for the heck of it. We haven’t come out in 104 years and there’s a reason for that.
‘The reason is we care about our patients and their health outcomes.
‘And the Tories can accuse us of going against the interests of our patients by striking but that doesn’t change the fact that we’re doing this to secure the future of all healthcare in Britain, which is not separate from patient welfare.
‘How are overworked, underpaid, and heavily stressed nurses supposed to provide care to patients?
‘They keep telling us there simply isn’t any money.
‘Everyone knows that’s a lie. The money just seems to appear when it is to be handed to the rich.
‘Until we’re made a decent pay offer and the miserable staffing conditions are resolved, we’re going to keep our industrial action on.’
Shobha, 41, a nurse with the NHS for the last 16 years, said: ‘When I became a Nurse even though we weren’t paid enormous pay checks, whatever we were paid was enough to sustain a minimal quality of life.
‘I didn’t become a nurse for money and it’s still not what motivates me, but this abhorrent treatment I’ve been through and that my fellow nurses have been through especially as the pandemic began and we lost several of our colleagues, ask anyone here and they’ll tell you at least 5 people they knew and worked with, is simply too much to bear.’
Atishi, 33 said: ‘It’s not just about the nurses you see here right now. Think of why someone, a young person will want to decide to be a Nurse.
‘They see how the government treats nurses and they see how little they get paid, no one wants to do that job, not everyone can afford to be a nurse even with the loans they have to take out just to go through training.’
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