Ambulance workers going on strike

[behappy1736]

Now I'm probably going to get flack for this but I just cannot get my head around why ambulance workers or any other medical professionals go on strike! I get it because of the pay rise and they are trying to make a point and strike to get a rise etc, but how can they do this when they know their actions will have consequences for people if they all strike?
It worries me that you will not be able to get an ambulance if needed for your family or children and I just don't understand how they can do this when their jobs are putting people first this kind of action is the complete opposite of that.

Your husband is a Hero

Successive governments have for too long benefitted from the moral duty many frontline workers feel. That duty means we have for so long plugged the gaps in underfunded services using our own emotional and personal resources for shitty pay.

things were bad pre covid, but everyone just got on with things as best they could and hoped for better days.

then covid came and ... well. Everything is fucked everywhere and everyone is knackered. They don't have anything left to give.

there
is
no
goodwill
left

Public services are a powder keg about to go boom.

So picture my DH in his ambulance car for at least a 12 hour shift often without a break (struggles to find a toilet just to have a wee and recently was only able to take half hour after being called to a drowned baby). His night is filled with emergency calls where he is literally saving lives, filling gaps in social/mental health care, dealing with panicked and bereaved families, escorting very sick people to hospital etc. Which of these services could he withdraw that would affect management? He is sick at the thought of striking but he can't find another way to get the message across that the system is falling apart.

DH is a consultant Oncologist and has never striked. He is working weekends in nhs because of the huge backlog. Obviously he gets paid for the extra work, but now they're fining them for working long hours. The system is seriously corrupt.

Usually even if nurses and doctors strike the emergency team are always at work to save the patients.

I stand with all those voting to strike. The government are the ones who have created this shit show not those working on the front lines.

If you think every HCP who is going on strike hasn't battled with the impact it will have on those in there care you are delusional. They don't want to not be there for their patients but the way things are currently they aren't able to give good care anyway as they are burnt out.

The government can't have it both ways they can't keep claiming that HCP are to important to strike but not important enough to pay properly.

Enough is enough.

Do the job for a day and you'll understand. These people are at the end of their ropes. They are striking and many are on the verge of leaving the profession altogether. The abuse is diabolical..the pay is appalling.. you wouldn't put up with it in your job but you expect them to? Unfortunately because it's 'the caring profession,' they have put up with too much for too long.- and are made to feel guilty on top of it!!

Even less so when you're broken physically and mentally and get berated by people like op for not 'putting others first' ALWAYS like you're MEANT to , as if emergency workers are some form of indentured servants to the public, just desperate to do whatever they're told whenever it's demanded.... #thegreatergood .....

Dh is a paramedic. It's not just them having a moan about pay. The whole system and working conditions are absolutely appalling and change needs to come. The shift patterns my dh endures are gruelling and should be illegal and there's so much more wrong.

I think there should be a total 100% strike. It would only need to be about 30 seconds long until the government listened. Obviously I'd prefer it if there was no need for strike action at all but there you go, this is what the tories have done. It's disgusting.

@Angelik people just don't understand what they go through in a shift. Your DH, and mine, deserve better.

I have every sympathy and totally support the strikes xx

To any paramedics on the thread, I 100% support your strike, good luck to you all, enough is enough.

We didn't strike because the outcome of such could be tragic.

The problem is , things are so bad now that tragic outcomes are massively increasing. People are dying because ambulances are delayed getting to them, often because they are stranded outside an A&E waiting to hand over another patient. There are only so many ambulances and crews, if they cannot hand over a patient, they cannot then just leave them outside on the tarmac when another call comes in.
In one service the number of people who had died ( no mention of the people suffering life changing injuries ) due to delays in treatment went up from 1 person in 1 year ( think it was 2020 ) to 37 deaths in 2022 . That is in one service, imagine if you had the figures for all the ambulance services ?
At the end of the day the Government is ultimately responsible for the NHS, if it isn't working the buck stops with them. The workforce shouldn't have to instigate industrial action to highlight these issues to try to improve patient outcomes.

Patient' lives are being put in danger now, right this minute and have been for a long time thanks to 12 years of Tory mismanagement. The rot set in with Lansley's wicked and wasteful £1.5 billion pound programme of "reform".

In an ideal world they wouldn't have to strike because their conditions would be better. In an ideal world everyone else would be angry enough to strike on their behalf and put pressure on government to change the conditions. Neither are happening. This is not an ideal world. They have no choice!

how can they do this when they know their actions will have consequences for people if they all strike?

Literally the entire point of any strike!

If they dont try nothing will change. Tory voters knew the consequences of their actions. It is what it is.

This x

Me too! I support any public sector worker striking.

The way I see it it’s short term pain (which may sadly lead to some people dying) to hopefully make the service safer and save more lives long run.

people are already dying due to ambulance delays because of paramedic shortages. People don’t want to be paramedics because of the combination of workload and feeling like the pay is not enough of an adequate reward.

so of the pay remains at current levels many more people will die.

I’m not striking for a pay rise.

I’m striking for more staff to be employed in my service to provide decent care for patients.

I’m striking for students to be given placements where they can learn safely and properly, being well supported to progress in their career rather than being used as unpaid auxiliary nurses.

I’m striking so that when my Dad is hospitalised he is not cared for by exhausted staff who aren’t able to give him the care that he needs.

l’m striking so that this government know that they won’t be allowed to breakdown our public services without a fight. I want them to know that the people hate what they are doing.

In August I was not allowed to go home at the end of the shift because if I had, the unit would have been unsafe and have to close.

I ask you to look at the recommendations that the independent pay commission made for members of parliament over the last 5 years, and then look at the recommendations made for nurses or paramedics or teachers or police officers. I would like to swap and the MP’s pay commission give my colleagues the same increases that the MPs have had.

Most of all I’m striking because I’m knackered and terrified that I am going to make a mistake that will affect one of my patients. Im striking for time to go to the toilet on a shift, or to have a lunch break. I’m contacted to work 37.5 hours per week. I probably work a minimum of 50 hours

Im strongly supporting you. Xx

My work quota was whatever calls came in for my area. If a call came in at 17.59, it was my responsibility to sort it out, whether it took 3 minutes or 3 hours. Plus one night a week I'd work from 9am - 6pm, then from 6pm through to 9am on call, and then the following day 9-6, regardless of how many call-out I'd done in the night. Every fifth weekend, I'd work from Sat 9am solidly through to Monday 1pm. Then I'd be off to Weds 9am.
I know about long hours. When we went on strike, I did exactly the same hours because by not doing so, a tragedy could occur.
Like I say, we all make our own decisions on what to do.*

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I'm confused what the anti-strikers think will happen if there is no strike.

The workers will leave the profession if they do not deem the the pay and standards acceptable. That is how the employment market works.

We'll be in a much worse profession if the NHS cannot retain or recruit staff.

It is the government who will be to blame for the consequences. The workers are being entirely reasonable and have given the government plenty of time and opportunities to do the right thing. Stop reading the Daily Mail, it is not the workers who are in the wrong here.

They're still attending cat 1 calls. A lot of them aren't striking because of the pay. They're striking because of the working conditions