to think that as an experienced midwife I should earn more than a window cleaner?

[whatinthewhatnow]

My mum's window cleaner charges £18 for an hour's work. I get £17. Does society really value window cleaners more than midwives?

In no way showing off, and this rarely happens, but I did dramatically save a teeny life on wednesday. It was really fricking scary. I work so hard, my women seem to really like me and I really do try so hard for them. I feel totally undervalued and stressed and I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth it, for £17 a bloody hour. FFS. .

Yes I'd rather my healthcare staff treated the whole person rather than the symptom. Strangely I thought that was a good thing.

As I stated earlier, I've been ill all my life.

I've had borderline cruel doctors and some of their comments have scarred me for life. My GP, who I have been seeing weekly since I was 14 is so compassionate and empathetic, she views me like a daughter after all these years. My specialists all empathise with the terrible pain and that makes it so much easier to trust them and allow them to examine me, ask personal questions and trust their judgement.

Being good with people is just as important part of the job.

*13, sorry.

Also meant to say being treated like a lab experiment is extremely degrading.

I wonder why people think everyone who enters a hospital suddenly looses control of all their bodily functions. The only time I have to deal with or clean up poo is if someone throws it at me.

Actually I'd say that goes even further in maternity services where the 'patients' aren't necessarily sick and the overall experience should be positive. I know many people hate hospitals but my only real experience of our local one has been the 2 times I gave birth, so I love going there as it brings back memories of my very good experiences on the best days of my life.

Doctors don't need to be compassionate; they just need to diagnose and treat and cure the person in front of them. Compassion should be carried out by nursing staff-which they tended to do in the past until their council got their proverbial knickers in a twist and wanted to be mini doctors.

Would I rather a doctor who was a bit offhand but cured me or one that was all 'there, there dear' but couldn't actually treat me?
The former, of course.

The problem is that doctors are trying to be nurses and vice versa.

What people 'should' be paid doesn't come into what they actually get paid though does it.

It's down to what people are prepared to pay a window cleaner to clean their windows.

It's down to how MW salaries are worked out and what the NHS can afford to pay to get the number of MWs they need (or not as the case may be!).

Value to society doesn't come into salary levels.

Shecot, have you ever had a life time illness? Were you diagnosed as a child?

If not, please don't spout off that doctors don't need to be compassionate. Yes, they really, really do.

The ones who were as brusque as you'd approve of said such horrible things to me while thrusting the ultrasound around inside me, it took me a long time to trust another doctor, by the time I allowed another doctor to perform an internal ultrasound it turned out I had a tumour.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

I don't think anyone on this thread has said anything about nurses being superior to Drs or deserving of higher pay

Unfortunately I have been more likely to witness the superiority complex that some Drs have in regard to nurses and nursing as a career.

I wonder if this might be something around the British class system, ie that generally nursing was seen as working class and medicine as a middle class/upper middle class career? Or is it something to do with male to female ratios in each?

I found the snootiness of some consultants quite disconcerting when i first started working in the UK.

However both roles are important to the wellbeing and experience of patients.

I have no issue with Drs being paid more than nurses. This should reflect the longer training and their ultimate responsibility for the care of the patient.

However nurses/midwives are also highly trained professionals and should be paid accordingly for their knowledge and the responsibility they have. Not half the amount of a newly qualified tube train driver!

I always find it highly amusing when I hear yet again from some member of the public that nurses don't really need to 'know' much as they receive all their instruction from the Drs and just have to follow what they are told.

Yep, that's why on every ward you see every nurse shadowed by her medical colleague and hand holded through every observation, procedure and clinical decision.

Gee, I actually think that would be quite helpful sometimes when I been attempting to contact a consultant who needs to make a decision on their critically ill patient whilst i am also dealing with the immediacy of their patient's deteriorating condition!

Try having a consultant or doctor who doesn't show any compassion before you say that. It can totally change how they treat you and the outcome.

Trust me shecot, when the time comes and a doctor has to tell you that you or someone you love has a life-limiting or terminal condition, you will be thankful for the compassion. Unless of course you would prefer "you've got cancer, there's nothing we can do, talk to the nurse because I'm too busy and important."

Lurking that sounds awful :( and I wonder if you should get that deleted for your own sake (fair enough if you don't want to).

How awful lurking

I think a certain poster is goading, no one can seriously be so antagonising and misinformed.

I think that as a midwife your working rights are more robust, if you fell sick or whatever you would be taken care of to some degree but as a window cleaner you have to make hay whilst the sun shines and have the stress of bloody HMRC taking every penny they can .
well done on saving the teeny life though.

No need to get it deleted, hopefully it will educate anyone reading this thread with the same views as shecot, even is she won't change her views. :)

" Denise34 Mon 13-Aug-12 17:17:54

People are worth whatever someone is prepared to pay them. "

I so fundamentally disagree with this statement. People are not worth what someone is prepared to pay them. And that is what is wrong with society, that worth is now seen in this way.

That is why bankers etc think they 'deserve' massive salaries/bonuses, and why nurses etc don't.

They do have insurance btw, they have to pay for their own liability insurance....

Midwives dont just have one patient to deal with-usually they have two, baby as well.

My DH is a Mental Health nurse-he works in a unit with seriously disturbed people. I have lost count of the time he has been punched, kicked,groped,scratched,spat at,had stuff thrown at him etc etc. Some of his patients are urinally and faecally incontinent, and he isnt too posh to clean it up just cos he has a bloody degree. He is also in charge of staff and the unit, has to be responsible for anwhere between 12-90 patients depending on whether he is shift leader or not. Drug rounds, administering injections, taking blood etc. Nursing is hard bloody work and a LOT of responsibility and if you make the teensiest mistake you can put a patients life at risk.All for princely sum of less than £13 an hour.Yes he knew what he signed up for, and he loves his job and wanted to make a difference. But I think nurses and HCAs should get paid far more than they do.

And the reason that a lot of nurses are saying that they know more than junior doctors is cos nurses usually train in a specialist field eg midwifery,mental health, paeds etc, whereas medicine is more general, until they actually do their speciality. My friends daughter is a second year junior doctor and they rely on the nurses a LOT, cos they know the patients and changes in their condition.

you say 'I work so hard' so does the window cleaner sit on his bum all day? Because my partner is a window cleaner and he is up and out working by 6am everyday and doesn't get home till gone 6pm that's 12 hour shift six days a week- he has one week of a year, how many do you get? Because my auntie is a midwife and she gets 8 weeks paid holiday a year also extra for working nights and bank holidays, yes your job probably is hard at times but that doesn't mean somebody else isn't! He comes home after (like me) providing for our family all day, a cold wet job where if he is ill he still goes out to work because there is no 'sick pay' like nurses and most other jobs get, he has petrol to pay for and water and equipment and tax and pension so yes I think £18 is a fair price and that he shouldn't be earning less just because your a midwife doesn't mean you work harder or deserve anymore than anybody else, there are people out there that would argue that you are over paid, why not have a go at the people who don't work and claim sickness benefits who are on thousands of pounds a year for doing nothing! Not a hard working window cleaner who works just as hard as the next person

Chip on your shoulder user? Why else would you resurrect such an old thread where everyone has already pointed out that window cleaners have costs

ZOMBIIIIIIIEEEEE

Do zombies have to pay for their own insurance?

Gah! I spent 20 mins reading this before I realised it was a zombie!

Yanbu the jobs are not comparable in terms of knowledge, responsibility, liability and accountability. Midwives and nurses also have to pay union fees too and insurance if self employed

Didn't realise it was a zombie thread either!