Ambulance strike is disgraceful?

[somethingdifferenttoday]

I just read this on bbc news, "Unions say life-threatening callouts will continue to be responded to over the next 24 hours but some urgent calls, for example for late-stage labour or a fall in the home, might not be answered."

Is it just me who thinks this is disgraceful?

Late stage labour at home or an elderly person laying with a broken hip ARE emergencies! I'm not sure how people in a caring profession can strike knowing these calls will go unanswered.

The unions talk about the backlog, paramedics stuck outside hospitals in ambulances unable to unload and go back out on the road but then admit they are striking for more pay rather than as a protest about that. The average salary of ambulance staff of £47,000 and a 4% pay rise isn't enough they claim but if they are given a pay rise, they will stop striking.

I think they do deserve more money (we all do with inflation) but I can't get past them supposedly being in a caring profession but taking steps that WILL cause extra deaths regardless.

I work in the private sector and have had zero pay rise. If I went on strike nobody would die and I'd be fired. This approach is abusing the critical position of their roles. I hope they are not given a pay rise as it will just demonstrate that blackmail works to other public sector workers and we will have even more strikes.

YABU = I support them striking
YANBU = I agree, it's disgraceful behaviour from a caring profession

And the strike is so definitely about pay. Fed up of the strikers saying they’re doing it to make it better for recruitment and conditions. Bullshit.

Except the pay and conditions have deteriorated beyond recognition over the years and the job is completely different.

@Havanananana
That the 5th/6th/7th wealthiest country on the planet cannot afford sufficient ambulances, nurses, doctors, hospital beds etc. is either a sign of a deliberate attempt to destroy the NHS or an indication of gross mis-management and incompetence on the part of the politicians in charge. Either way, it is a disgrace.

Hah! We are 25th richest country and we are sinking fast down that list.

There are strikers on the news today who clearly have not been in the job ‘for years’.

Rightly or wrongly, if my child died because of a strike, I can categorically say I would not be blaming the government, I doubt it would even enter my mind. I would absolutely be blaming the service and the people that failed them. I don't care if that makes me unreasonable. I know that's exactly how I would feel, and I think a lot of people would feel the same.

I remember the fire brigade strike of 1977.

www.fbu.org.uk/history/nine-week-national-pay-strike-begins-14-november

Similar conditions to now, rising inflation and wages effectively devaluing. Firefighters were seen as unskilled labour. There was actually a lot of support for their action as we hadn't become so cowed and supine as a country after 40 years of too many buying in to the myth that unions=bad and striking=evil.

I am sole carer for a very unwell and immobile DH who is just out of hospital. We are more likely than most to need an ambulance in the near future, sadly.

Solidarity with the strikers.

That the 5th/6th/7th wealthiest country on the planet cannot afford sufficient ambulances, nurses, doctors, hospital beds etc

We aren’t wealthy though. London and SE is. The rest of the country has levels of poverty similar to a third world country.

No your analogy should be an organic steak cooked to your liking and advertised at £10 when you enter. What arrives is a cheap offfcut tough and overcooked and the bill has gone up to £30 when you leave!

Okay no one will join the profession then. What then? Who will look after everyone then?

The argument you’re making makes no sense. Society won’t stop without a project manager but it sure will without the public sector workers!

Even since COVID things have deteriorated drastically. The surge in demand is incredible.

That's true, but you do still have the choice to do something different.

I think that the reality of the NHS is somewhat different from the university course.

My DD had a family member of a patient screaming in her face yesterday... a colleague is off sick after being punched in the face.

However.. they are taking your advice once there and are leaving.... so you get your wish!

I would blame the government. They are the ones that made this mess.

MONEY MONEY MONEY

And what do you earn @Venetiaparties ? Aren't you on holiday enjoying a well -earned break with your family right now? How many times did you use a food bank last year?

Victim-blaming. How can even write that most people dying today due to a heart attack and no ambulance brought it on themselves due to lifestyle? How fucking dare you say that it’s the publics fault for needing ambulances!

Spoken like a privileged person blessed with good health and luck.

Duh! . People are finding another career and the job is worse for those that are left as a result! That's the whole point. If those people leave rather than strike there will be no ambulance service at all. It's a bit of a joke that you think it terrible that there will be no ambulances for a couple of days but fine for there to be no ambulance service at all.

OK. And what does that reformation and overhaul involve? I'd suggest that any reform that doesn't include paying trained staff wages that they can live on, support families on, keep pace with inflation, is going to be unsuccessful. Any overhaul that doesn't involve enabling the trained staff to perform their roles without sufficient support and onwards care paths for their patients, suppory from colleagues, from managers, the ability to take rest breaks, have some certainty over when their shifts finish is going to fail.
It needs investment in processes yes but also in people. This is what they are striking for. The government has not listened.

We have had to call ambulances for DH's elderly parents 3 times in the last 3 months. Once for FIL who has alone when he had a fall - ambulance called by his monitoring company. took 8 hrs - he had a hip so badly broken he had to have a hip replacement operation. He had another fall 2 days ago and it took 12 hrs. MIL is in a nursing home and has been diagnosed with pneumonia and her diabetes is all over the place. Ambulance took 10 hrs. the system is broken now. would anyone even notice the difference if they had a strike.

They are officially striking over pay simply because right wing Governments have made it pretty much impossible to call a legal strike over anything else. Only a complete twat like the OP believes that is the only thing they are really striking about. Anyone can see people are already dying every single day due to the crisis in the NHS and social care, and everything else in the public sector. It is the Government’s fault we have reached crisis point. They have made people’s work lives intolerable, and the result is a massive shortfall in people to do the work, because nobody who cares wants to work in a “caring” profession which can no longer actually safeguard its employees’ physical, emotional or mental capacity to care. It’s Government policy that has resulted in caring professions being deeply unattractive and in crisis, and demanding danger money just to get more lambs to the slaughter. And why in earth would anyone strike on a day and in a way their action makes no difference?

But people are leaving in droves. We don’t want them to do something different.

Recently we’ve been in such high demand that those level of calls haven’t been attended to anyway without the strikes !!!!! We are broken, the system is broken. Something has to change

CornishGem and they are. That's the point.

And if your child dies because ever increasing numbers of healthcare workers "choose to do something different " who will you be blaming then?

YABU

Let me be very clear with you.

There is no reason on earth why the strike had to include CAT 2 calls.
You know this is extremely dangerous and totally unnecessary. Whether the ambulance service is struggling or not - the fact that no calls will be answered is unforgivable and only adding to the problems. You don't IMPROVE anything by making things a million times worse.

The week before Christmas - totally premeditated designed and timed to cause the most harm to patients. It is a renowned for being the most difficult time of the year in the NHS and the unions decided that would be a perfect moment to execute their grim and misdirected plan.

The ethics, or lack of, are plain for the whole world to see, the kind of people that run the unions, and the kind of people that are supposed to care for the sick, dying and injured.

I am sorry to say I think there is going to be some serious regret about the union's decision and those that followed them like sheep when the loss and deaths that were entirely avoidable start mounting.