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

It’s painful thinking of all the project managers, financial analysts, HR “business partners”, logistics co-ordinators on here stamping their feet in outrage at the “irresponsibility” of chronically underpaid and overworked people striking in winter..…. While they enjoy their home made frothy latte and sit down to another WFH day.

have some fucking perspective.

These people have been disregarded for proper pay rises for a dozen years.

They’ve been asked to do more overtime, with less resources, they’re worked to the bone, they’re exhausted and they can’t pay their bills.

but oh no.. “I will never vote Labour” because I managed to get a nice private £45k job and a Kia Sportage on PCP, so that means I can’t support public sector workers because it’s unaspirational.

(FWIW I am a mainly WFH senior finance professional btw. I just have a sense of what other people might be going through).

Maybe. But I have a close relative who has been very ill in hospital and who took a serious turn yesterday, having to be transferred to the nearest big hospital for an emergency operation and care. Hopefully they will be okay, but whatever the case I'll still not blame the NHS staff who went on strike. Instead I blame the system that forced the staff to do this in the first place, the system that has been broken to the point that my relative hasn't been able to get the care they've needed for the last four years - which could have prevented them from being this ill at this point.

@Venetiaparties it's not anywhere near the amount of people who are dying every single second of the day and night because the paramedics are at breaking point. You are very ignorant.

YNBU.

Shit like this is why I am so anti unions. Its absolutely disgraceful.

The fact people employed to do a job can hold sick peoples life at ransom for more pay is absolutely sickening. I dont support unions or strikes. I would never join one and I have absolutely zero respect for anyone who strikes in a profession that can negatively impact on others lifes to the extent they could die or be left with life changing circumstances so they can get paid more.

It is astonishing that ANYONE can support not attending cat 2 call outs.

You are either thick and have no understanding of what that actually means to someone having a heart attack/stroke or sociopathic. Your pick.

YABU.

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

People's loved ones have been dying unnecessarily in ever greater numbers in recent years directly as a result of the mess this government is making of the NHS. More will die if ambulance staff aren't paid properly since more and more will just be forced out into jobs that enable them to pay their bills.

YABU.

But pay and conditions are part of the problem - people won't keep working in a situation where they are unable to help people in the way they want, are horribly overworked because they can't recruit and are stuck in queues due to other parts of the NHS/social care being run down. The only thing they can strike about is pay and conditions - they can't strike about the general issue of the mismanagement of the NHS. But pay and conditions are part of that. I do think you are being wilfully blind to the real issues. See the thread from the woman waiting with her aunt and note that was before the strike.

But these cases are not getting ambulances on non strike days at the moment. This is the point. The overwhelming majority on here clearly support the strike and the workers, not because we want this strike to happen but because something has got to change. This is ALL on the government. The underfunding of our public services is a political choice.

YABU

YABU. It's clearly the government's primary responsibility to ensure the safety of it's citizens in any circumstances and they have failed miserably. You may not have had a pay rise but many in the private sector have had rises well above the trivial offers to nurses and other public sector workers who have kept essential services going throughout the pandemic despite Tory underfunding.

You should have added a vote.

YABU.

Even if the average paramedic is on £47K (which I highly doubt), it’s still not enough to encourage people to remain in the role. I work in an office and earn more. My job is certainly not life or death and I think it’s an absolute travesty that caring professionals earn so little.

If I went on strike nobody would die and I'd be fired.

Strange argument. As you have stated, lives depend on there being enough paramedics to do their job well and the service is currently in crisis. Surely this makes them more deserving of their pay increase, not less?

No actually that news article was specifically about the equivalent of an HCA level 3. Not qualified registered nurses and managers. HCAs in the nhs tend to have more extended job roles. But in any case if social care are competing for staff with the nhs it would be a good thing in terms of pay for nhs staff to be paid better. The problem with social care is it is ultimately profit driven

The NHS staff clearly don't give a jot

Yabu.... I have just left my job in the NHS after 25 yrs as the shit show it has become means I no longer feel safe going to work. The infrastructure has collapsed around me and there are gaping great holes where there should be support and services to support my patients, leaving them and me hugely vulnerable... it is no longer about managing risk and minimising harm... it is flying by the seat of your pants praying today is not the day it all comes crashing down and someone suffers serious harm needlessly because the service that should take over now was no longer there, and it was my fault because it was on my watch despite there being NOTHING I could do as i has done absolutely everything I could do . This is NOT all about pay... but pay is the only thing they can negotiate on...

Ha!

So you picked the roughest time of the year, just before Christmas to make your point and increase the death rate!!!!!!

Thanks a lot.

And by the way it will be unions that will be to blame now the NHS has finally collapsed as it is doing right now. They put the final boot in.

Demanding a 19% increase is quite frankly fucking beyond ridiculous!!!!!!!!!!!!!

😡

YABU

fair pay and conditions are what we should all strive for. You say you’d be sacked if you went on strike so obviously you are not in a union (you’d be protected if you were). You also need to be aware that people don’t want to strike, you lose a days pay (of course you do as you are withdrawing your labour) and lots of staff then worry about how they are viewed in the workplace by management (although strikers never get thanks when they achieve better than what was proposed).

the caring professions, indeed any profession, does not want to get to the point where a strike or withholding labour is the only option. Weirdly, these staff are probably the most committed and passionate and want to make things better.

I’ve been on strike once in my 25 year local government career. It’s awful but it was necessary.

the fundamental values of the Conservative Party are for a free market (simply put). The nhs has no part in that.

when a government does not want to listen, how do you expect workers to display not just unhappiness but total and utter disbelief at the way they are treated and paid. Ohhhhhh I know - they should just be grateful that they get paid and we can all stand outside at 8pm on a Thursday and clap. I’ve seen the front benchers expenses claims today (it’s circulating somewhere) - utterly ridiculous let’s just give them a Pat on the back and a clap.

this government and lots of the national media have successfully ran campaigns to divide and rule. Not between the haves and have nots (that’s firmly in place), but between us lot, the workers, those at the coal face…. If we allow this to continue, this race to the absolute bottom (I don’t have it so you can’t), this entitlement our society is going to get into an even bigger mess.

so I repeat Y A B U

But the service is in crisis already and those calls are not being attended in a safe way - you are choosing not to see the existing issues.

There are already a huge number of unfilled vacancies in NHS as staff leave- they already think care is compromised - I think these strikes are a last ditch effort to force change.

I don't think anyone wants them and it's likely deaths and risk are increased but nurse unions have made it clear they want to talk and it's the government who won't.

YABU

I feel that I can't support or condemn this kind of strike. It is a catch 22 situation. At this stage, what else can they do other than strike to get the government to listen? But I also agree that it is awful that people could die due to this whereas they otherwise may have been able to be taken to hospital.

This is how bad things have got. Paramedics and nurses are being forced to strike, not because they want to but because there is no other choice, knowing that this could quite well mean members of the public are sacrificed in the process.

YANBU.

If they are struggling on £47K then how are other people coping?

Country is full of carers who get £67 a week, try that.

Oh do f*ck off Steve...don't see any of your lot getting a lower than inflation payrise for consecutive years.

It's already taking hours to attend some of these calls, people are dying waiting, dying queued outside hospital, dying in hospital corridors because of lack of staffing and resource. To be honest there will probably be better coverage today as there's more awareness and focus on ensuring staffing levels. Plenty of people can make their way to A&E and should, I expect today they will and then be back to using the NHS taxi service tomorrow.