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

YABU. It’s a shame you didn’t add a voting option. The ambulance service is on its knees, along with the rest of the NHS after 12 years of punitive austerity from the government. Get angry at that, not at workers using their only weapon, a weapon of last resort.

I am staggered anyone would ever agree to strike and let people die.

Im staggered that these people have to reply on benefits if there jobs mean the difference between life and death

I'd be more staggered people wouldn't strike to retain more staff and ensure less suffering and deaths in the long term.

Sorry, if they can’t live on their wage they’re doing something wrong or living beyond their means. I know loads of paramedics due to my brother and dad both being paramedics for years and none of them are having to use food banks or struggling. Oh actually, one is. Guess why? Living beyond means! Everything financed, huge mortgage. Silly.

That old chestnut.

The last resort when your argument evaporates into thin air is to accuse something of being a troll or journalist. I am neither. I am seriously upset for all of the poor people that will die today, for the women in labour without help, for the child that is seriously burnt and for anyone driving a car anywhere.

It is unforgivable.

BabyFour2023

if its such a great wage, why are they struggling to recruit?

Can you explain why you keep mention mick lynch then?

oh yes - could it be you’re deeply uneducated on the matter!

Ignore the accusations. It’s an important issue

YABU.

I'm growing tired of these goady posts. The entire service is ON ITS ARSE so thinking that it's 'terrible' that they're striking sort of implies when you called an ambulance last week that one would turn up in five minutes.

My mum is in a nursing home, had a stroke, it was logged as a cat 1 call and the ambulance turned up 8 hours later - which is the time they warned it would take.

8 hours. Cat 1.

They're striking as it seems to be the only way to get their voices heard.

Who will you be blaming tomorrow, Venetia, when the strike is over and people are still dying due to understaffing?

We are moving from a low wage economy full of cheap foreign labour to a higher wage economy and coupled with inflationary pressures it is dismal for most.
If we have more inflation and give in to all these public sector strikers, the pound sinks further, we go into even more debt and could end up like Greece. So given into public sector strikes on pay has to be done very carefully.
I would offer temporary energy contributions for key public sector workers, if anything rather than just pay. The real issue is cost of energy, cost of housing and rising food prices. The housing crisis has been in the making for years and successive governments have not addressed the real issue - preferring to appeal to the grey vote and keep pushing house prices up. That is a nightmare in the long run.

If key public sector workers were given secure housing and energy we would not be in this predicament. Then people would actually want to take these critical jobs. They need further benefits to make it more worthwhile doing these jobs. There is a massive recruitment crisis in so many of these critical jobs due to the working conditions. So something does have to be offered including incentives to train. There are so many easier working from home jobs now for the young etc - why would anyone want to be a nurse/paramedic/teacher these days? That fundamental question needs to be answered.
My sympathy does not extend to all the strikers. Post and RMT - unfortunately there are alternatives in technology and delivery drivers etc.

Why don’t you work in a caring sector? If you think caring jobs should exist why aren’t you doing one? If you think care sector workers should be held to ransom because they can’t strike why don’t you step up and join them? If you think care sector workers should put up with poor pay, daily abuse in their public facing roles, poor conditions and appalling stress due to being understaffed, why don’t you join the ranks and help solve the problem? Using ‘holier than thou’ words like disgraceful when you don’t even work in a caring role yourself is hypocritical. Look in the mirror and then change your career.

And i refer you to a thread on here last week from a nurse on £34k, no debts, using food banks, moaning about being in ‘poverty’. The situation isn’t about pay, it’s about the cost of living rise, gas/electric increases, petrol increases, food increases, literally everything through the rood with price rises. Most of which is a global problem. Apart from the very rich, we are all struggling. And I don’t want my taxes raised to subsidise an unrealistic pay claim of 19% for a section of society, when we are all struggling.

We need new laws to prevent this ever happening again.
We need a cross party consensus and plan to overhaul the NHS
We need to understand that this is all about Mick Lynch's ego and 19% - if that costs lives, so be it, is his motto.

Get rid of him and Pat, and find someone serious that can fight your cause. They are the laughing stock of the country stood there like a bouncer reading out his demands like it is 1976. It would be funny if it were not so bloody dangerous.

But not for the poor people who died last week, or the week before, or six months ago due to unsafe staffing levels? Why are those deaths, due to Government decisions, forgivable and any deaths that occur on the day of a strike unforgivable?

I’m well aware, and this is why I
am in support of the strike.

I now have heart condition that I am getting used to, and am heavily pregnant.

I have had contingency plans drawn up since early in my pregnancy, because, due to my previously mentioned past experience, I knew I couldn’t rely on there being an ambulance if I needed one.

Something has to change. If the government are refusing to listen to words, then what other options are there?

I am grateful the ambulance service is willing to take a stand. I hope the government will start listening.

I hope in the future I won’t need to make contingency plans for an emergency situation.

WHY are you jabbering on about Lynch?!

He has nothing to do with the paramedics on strike today.

what is wrong with you?

YABU. In our area you can’t get an ambulance whether they are on strike or not. Those scenarios mentioned in you OP don’t get an ambulance round here anyway. That is the real disgrace.

Mick Lynch is the head of the RMT union. Why do you keep referencing him?

At least they won't be dying due to the deliberate action of those paid to save them. Yes the NHS needs to be scrapped and redesigned, but this is NOT the way to do it

What about Steve Barclay refusing to discuss pay at all when he met with the RCN? Sat in a room opposite Pat Cullen, who'd already said the strikes could be called off if pay talks resumed, and arrogantly stonewalled her. That is not the actions of a man who gives a shit about the lives that could be lost today. Where's your fury for him?

We need to understand that this is all about Mick Lynch's ego and 19% - if that costs lives, so be it, is his motto.

Mike Lynch has nothing to do with the NHS strikes - are you really that ignorant about the unions and what is happening?

FFS. How many times do you have to be told that paramedics striking has nothing to do with Mick Lynch??? You seem to be completey obsessed. Your hatred of the man is beyond reason. As is your comparing trade unions fighting for better pay and conditions to paedophilia and other crimes. I genuinely cannot decide if you're trolling or in serious need of psychological help.

Anyone I know who planned a home birth had them cancelled on the day due to chronic lack of staffing anyway. I honestly think it will make hardly any difference, dangerous for those who refuse to go in and 'free birth' though. People need to factor the strikes into their decisions- disappointing if your heart is set on a home birth but reality.

You have posted an incoherent load of twaddle - blaming Mick Lynch for the detail of ambulance response was a particular highlight.

The blame lies 100% with this corrupt government who are too busy lining their own pockets and those of their pals to ensure ordinary people have decent pay and conditions.

Paramedics aren't a gang of murderous marxists - and they haven't been hijacked by marxists. They need decent pay and conditions and that would be possible in one of the world's wealthiest nations except for the fact that we have a government run by millionaires solely for millionaires.

For once the rest of us are showing we've had enough of that.