Ambulance strike is disgraceful?

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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

YABVU. My DH picks up around £12ph net for an extremely hard, dangerous and physically gruelling job.

Dispatchers and EMTs earn about 20k :( I left the ambulance service because I couldn't mentally cope with knowing people were dying, that could have survived.
I'm so sad they're striking, but there's close to no service anyway.

My dad was a paramedic. For some unknown reason despite what they deal with they are paid less than the police. They deserve more - as someone else pointed out, being first on the scene in horrific RTAs and children not breathing. YABU.

So how should pay and conditions be bettered?

Dispatchers and EMTs earn about 20k :( I left the ambulance service because I couldn't mentally cope with knowing people were dying, that could have survived.
I'm so sad they're striking, but there's close to no service anyway.

YANBU.

YABVU. The blame lies directly at the shit show of the government who are destroying the NHS. Try getting an ambulance when you have to first give your medical insurance details before one is dispatched like in the USA.

YABU, increasing pay is the only way to manage the recruitment and retention crisis in the NHS, which in turn is the only way to manage the waiting times and backlogs. It’s not greedy drivers and nurses taking advantage, it’s people communicating with the only tool they have, after the govt has refused to listen.
Some might wonder if this was part of the govts plan to move more and more of the nhs into private hands? I’m concerned about how long people might have to wait for an ambulance in a post-NHS world, when they haven’t got the money or means to pay for it, quite frankly.
Did i mention YABVU?

“Caring profession” is now synonymous with “put up and shut up”.

Not NHS, but education. I have voted to strike because I do care, not because I don’t.

“Ambulance unions have made 'a conscious decision to inflict harm on patients' by walking out of their jobs in a bitter dispute over pay, the Health Secretary said today.” What a cunt.

You’re using the wrong average for a start, very few paramedics are paid anything near that.
A paramedic called into the radio a few days ago saying that on their last shift they were the only fully qualified paramedic on their patch for an area of 1 million people. This is the risk to life, every day, that they’re trying to highlight with the strikes. A big part of this is that chronic underpay makes it harder to hire into roles that are literally a matter of life or death. Would you want that level of risk on your shoulders for less than £30k a year? What’s disgraceful is the government have allowed it to get so bad in their ideological drive to privatise our NHS

People are already needlessly dying due to the state of the NHS. The government are well aware of this and have done nothing to address it, this is a last resort and they're still not bothered about listening. It is about pay but it's also to raise awareness of the epically shit conditions they work under. At the end of the day its just a job, people are leaving in their thousands as they can get similar pay elsewhere for much less stress, as they should. It's not worth wrecking their mental and physical health for a job which doesn't recognise their training, skills or level of responsibility. Covid was traumatic as hell as well and there isn't the resource for healthcare staff to access the support they need for this, so again many are leaving.

YABU

YABU they're at last resort what else can they do?

YABVVU

No patients were “abandoned, suffering or dying”- laughably, staffing levels were better during the nurses strike than an average day due to management stepping down into clinical roles and agency staff being rostered in.
if you believe everything in the daily Mail you are a fool.

The treatment of ambulance staff has been disgraceful. I know several people who have left the ambulance service because of untenable stress and low pay, and people will continue leaving until they get a better deal and conditions that are bearable.

But that was happening even when there wasn't a strike - who do you blame then?

@Onnabugeisha do you hold me in contempt as a 15year qualified nurse who can’t take the stress anymore and have left nursing knowing that it’s almost impossible to recruit experienced nurses into my area knowing that I’m leaving a service severely short staffed for my own sanity and mental health?

47k is in the same bbc article. I was quoting that.

To be honest, if it's 27k, I feel the same.

You all say you support the strike, when it's your loved one who does, will you feel the same?

YABU 10000000 times.

BLAME. THE. TORIES.

YABU. Interesting that you forgot to include the poll.

I’m not quite sure how additional pay is going to help matters when the system is broken throughout. Everyone focusses on pay but it’s the conditions that are the worst of it. Chronically understaffed and under resourced.

Of course people will die directly because of the strikes today. Kids will die, parents will die. Don't kid yourself about that.

But the whole thing is a shit show. The nhs is a shitshow. We can't blather on about our wonderful nhs when it's not longer fit for purpose. What's the answer? Everyone leave the UK or medicine who works for the nhs? That's the alternative

That's happening anyway because there arent enough nurses, doctors and paramedics in the first place. People are leaving the profession in droves over pay and working conditions.

I support the strike. Op you could volunteer for St John's ambulance service while strikes ongoing to help out.