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

The government have been leaving people to die for years. In the name of austerity which is an ideological choice. Is that bad too or is that ok? Please explain your reasoning

Yes she had a call out two weeks ago and it was answered.

@Venetiaparties I agree with you. This debate always brings out the “be kind” leftists who accuse anyone to the right of Marx of being thick and mad. It’s adorable really - we’re all young and idealistic once!

19% pay rise is magical thinking.

Yabvu- these calls are already not being answered. Because the Tories have let everything go to shit while they pocket all the money.

A labouring woman should get a lift.

Fallen elderly are already waiting hours and hours and hours.

Solidarity with all striking workers ✊🏽

I mean, no you don’t. That kind of leverage in any other situation wouldn’t be welcomed

Not having the right to withdraw your labour is called slavery.

YABU - direct your anger to the government who have defrauded this country out of billions. Enough is enough

What demands? Which of the paramedics "demands" do you regard as "pure greed"?

I support the strikes. For all the reasons upthread.

I am calling this out as total bullshit!

If the RCN had asked for 8/9% you might have a point, and the gov was refusing, but 19%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is ludricious.
And just in case you haven't noticed we are in the middle of a war, we have had a pandemic and we are in huge debt!! Where the fuck is all of this money going to come from? Thin air? We can't afford 19%. So what can anyone do?

You have a gun to our heads in the shape of the dead and dying - and you are demanding the impossible.

I hope no one close to you dies today on their own, with no help.

YABVU

I say this as a mother to two dc with health conditions, one incredibly serious.

Just some examples:
4 year old with a serious head injury - no ambulances, can you drive her
9 year old with suspected meningitis, fever of 40, couldn't move neck - put her in the car and drive, it will be quicker
13 year old unconscious type 1 diabetic - can you drive?

This has been going on for years. It terrifies me that it will happen when I'm on my own as my dc are too big to lift of my own. Today is no different to any other day.

We desperately need more funding into adult social care to support the elderly and mental health which should take pressure off the ambulance service and a&e.

As an ex public sector worker who left to protect my own mental health I don't think anyone understands the pressure unless you've lived/worked it.

@Venetiaparties we still want to know what do you do and how much you make.

Also, i hope you are on annual leave (not WFH on your very stressful job) to have so much time to write so much nonsense.😅

Patronising crap. Paramedics aren't asking for 19% but it wouldn't be unreasonable given how far they have fallen behind.
CEOs of FTSE 100 companies have had 20%+

How about complaining to your local MP and ask why they're not even negotiating. The answer is because the government don't give a crap. So if you're worried about people dying then why so late in the day this has been happening for years. That's what you get when one nurse is doing 3 or 4 people's jobs, when ambulances can't offload because there aren't enough staff or beds. Who do you think is responsible for that...nurses ??? Paramedics??? No its the GOVERNMENT.

If you want to get mad ..have a go at the government. They have driven the nhs to this point deliberately and you supporting them will expedite the end of the nhs and your own misery because they are actively pursuing privatising healthcare and you will be the one paying for it...literally. if you want an Americanised system look no further than Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt. A quick Google will set you right.

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.

I think a career with higher wages would improve the attractiveness of the job and also retain staff that are considering leaving due to their years of real-term pay cuts. Thousands of NHS staff leaving annually without being replaced is part of the reason the ambulance service, wards, theaters are all so poorly staffed, leading to inevitable delays and poor standards of care.

Also - I don't understand why everyone insists that the strikers are greedy for wanting higher pay? People work and people have jobs for wages. We all need money, the whole basis of being in employment is pay.

With the value of the wage for paramedics and nurses being decreased annually, while their workload (especially since Covid) is increasing, why shouldn't they want higher wages to continue to pay their rent/mortgage, bills, food etc. Bills which have increased dramatically in the last year.

Why should they just continue to keep working for less and less pay? Their wage has continuously decreasing value, which continues to stagnate as the cost of living continues to rise. They don't want to leave, they want to help patients, they wouldn't have qualified for the job otherwise. But it is now at the stage where they simply can't afford to. Mortgages are becoming too expensive, childcare is now becoming out of reach.

It's all well and good saying "get another job then", but thousands are. The result of this is a reducing workforce in the NHS. The staff that remain now have a harder job as, due to the low pay and poor working conditions, recruitment is low and staff retention is low.

Once all the paramedics, nurses etc have taken the advice of some posters here and all go and get a different job, what happens then? When the wage of paramedics and nurses is so low, the workload is so extreme and the hours expected above what is contracted are even higher than now, who will want to work these jobs?

@fairgame.you are missing my point. I know all nurses are on the same pay banding. I am saying that nurses carrying out specialist procedures on tiny babies are not paid entry level wages, which is, what is often implaid. Not said, but implied.
@Katapolts did you ever answer my question about why you were paid under the national pay scale minimum? I imagine it's the usual trick - which is another favourite on threads such as this one - of quoting your take home pay, not your actual salary. As if no-one else pays tax or NI.

If my mother dies today because Mick Lynch refused to agree to cat 2 call outs - I will be suing his fucking arse from here to hell and back. HE is behind all of this

FFS he isn't even on strike today nor is the RMT a health union.

1000s of intelligent ordinary men and women, working their arses off, have voted for this strike, in a democratic vote.

Barclay refused to talk about Cat 2 calls outs, told Unions in a meeting yesterday it was down to local agreement and he didn't to circumvent this.

You seem irrational in your widely inaccurate claims.

Well if the paramedics all leave then it will be the same outcome. Many have already left due to poor pay and conditions. Currently people are waiting hours for urgent call outs. To be honest if you fall and break your hip and are left on the floor for 48 hours you will probably die anyway. Not to mention the huge amount of suffering in the meantime. How much difference does it actually make if the call is never answered at all? These strikes are not going to make things much worse.

Do you think they want this? Do you think they enjoy this? Do you think they do an invaluable job that very many of us (myself included) simply do not have the skills and the personal qualities to do? Do you think our "government" who spent yesterday's cabinet meeting discussing the coronation ffs do not hate the NHS and are destroying it prior to selling it? We need to ask ourselves why nurses and paramedics are striking, things are desperate, not just for them due to wages not being effectively reduced over the years, but due to the last 12 years of the Tories, who hate the NHS and have done from its inception are hell bent on getting rid of it.

As someone who has needed an ambulance a year ago for a suspected heart attack (it never arrived by the way) and who is now heavily pregnant…

I am quite happy with them using me as leverage.

They tried to negotiate with words. The government failed to listen.

It’s not like anything has changed. They weren’t able to help me before. They won’t be able to help me today. As a result of their strike action, they might be able to help me in the future.

YABU

I had to drive a person with a life threatening condition to A&E twice this year well before any strike. The government is driving the NHS into the ground.

The nurses are wasting their time, Government be it labour , conservative what not will always get nurses from abroad who will be extremely happy to work for 12-£13 an hour. It's the reason that's never spoken about as to why nurses never get a pay rise.