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.

They're not charity workers, they're professionals who should be respected and paid, and the service run efficiently in order to enable them to do their job. Throwing the moral line out there is very unfair, it's saying you're important enough to be essential in saving lives but not important enough to pay fairly. It's abuse. Direct your anger at the politicians who continue to allow the shitty pay, poor working conditions and under staffing to continue.

I like this perspective.
In circumstance where someone was required to carry on serving others whilst sacrificing their own needs, through demands made by manipulation of their moral compass, it would be abuse.

It's pot luck if you can get an ambulance if you call 999 in a very serious situation.

Until your on hold while someone is dying, you can't imagine how broken the system is. No point in pretending all is fine when the reality for some is....
being on hold while you do cpr
Laying on the floor for hours with broken bones
Waiting five hours in a ambulance loading bay

I don't blame them. Either way people will die. For so many reasons. The nhs limps along on goodwill and grace of god

You deserve all the flack you get, the ignorance the general public have about essential services like healthcare and ambulances is astounding. You realise that hospitals aren't staffed with robots right?! That the real human people who keep your family and children alive are struggling to keep their family, their kids and themselves alive due to low wages and rising costs. The pay increase this year does not cover the cost of living and does not cover inflation. It leaves us in the the exact same position, it's as though it didn't happen.

And that's just the cost of living. Wards are dangerously understaffed. People are dying because of under staffing. No one wants to live a life as a nurse in those conditions hence why there is shortage in recruitment and a general lack of new nursing students . New students graduate without support are left will dangerous levels of patient acuity to cope with alone and burnout. That's if they don't legally get in trouble by doing something wrong because of their inexperience.

It's two days. TWO DAYS of strikes. Get some insight.

Completely agree.
Tory voters can own the lot of it.
They either voter Tory knowing, it would result in worse public services (perhaps because they imagined they won't need or use them) or they were stupid enough to think in wouldn't result in worse public services.

I'm not involved in the medical profession at all, or public services.

What can I do to support your strike?
I could write to my MP but they're in opposition and support you already. I will write (email) to the health secretary today. Are there any petitions I can sign?
It seems the government response to all these strikes is to try to make striking illegal, just like they're trying to with protesting.

I used to have hospital staff unable to rent privately in the “ nice” area they were working in, due to their wages not being high enough to pass an affordability test. What happens when the “ nice” areas have less and less NHS staff as no one will work there as they can’t afford the transport costs to get to these areas?

They're not a bloody charity.

Until folks are seriously inconvenienced nothing will change.

If more professions went on strike perhaps we wouldn't have working people using bloody food banks, or struggling on poxy zero hours contracts.

Wise up OP.

The Tories are past masters at social cleansing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homesforrvotesscandal

The Tories are past masters at social cleansing.

this means the “ nice areas” don’t have staff, those Tory areas that are expensive to live will struggle to recruit staff due to living costs

I worked in health and social care for 12 years, as was private it was written into our contracts that we were not allowed to unionise and any strike action was sackable.
In the end I just quit.

You cannot possibly understand what it's like to work horrifically long hours without even time to use the toilet or grab a drink of water, short staffed, and exhausted. Terrified that you will at some point make a mistake because you are absolutely burnt out and cannot take a break, cannot take sick leave, and have your annual leave cancelled. You cannot understand the impact that has on our mental health.

THAT is what comprises patient care.

And it's worse now, because inflation is so high, now our staff need to work overtime to afford to live.

THAT compromises patient care.

100% support any public sector strikes.

The service is dying and no one is doing anything, their only way to be heard is to strike, that is why

Right but what happens to that baby/young child/elderly relative NOW when they call for an ambulance and they can't get to them for 12 hours because there's a huge backlog/staff off sick with stress/staff who can't afford to get to work because it's the end of the month/all the ambulance are tied up at hospital? A colleague's dad had a severe stroke recently and was told it would there was an 11 hour wait for an ambulance-her mum had to go round the neighbourhood at midnight desperately knocking doors for help lifting him into a car to drive him to hospital. He died.

And what happens to them in 2,5,10 years when, rather than striking all the ambulance staff have just quit and there is nobody to send, not just for one day, but ever.

Please suggest your alternative to striking. If there was a credible one they'd be doing it.

We will still go to emergency calls the way it bloody should be

Funking sick of going to snowflakes with hangovers and indigestion 😒

If you can get to a hospital you should not be calling an ambulance whether it be by bus or taxi

Do you have any idea what is it like being called to someone with a hangover and listening to emergency jobs being called out like baby not breathing but you are with a 25 year old who drink a bottle of wine, plus a bottle of vodka and it convinced they are dying?

if you can get to a hospital you should not be calling an ambulance whether it be by bus or taxi

This in spades. Too many people calling an ambulance when they could easily be driven there, leaving people who genuinely need one waiting even longer. If you're physically able to get to A&E quickly, why wouldn't you?

Oh god, I so agree with this. The number of general broadcasts we get for cardiac arrests that have no resources to be sent, whilst I am sitting there with someone who has had a cold for a week and has decided for some random reason that they suddenly need an ambulance is ridiculous.

A recent bank holiday weekend I got sent, in the last hour of my shift, to a job 45 mins away, for someone who had no less than 20 guests at her house drinking (many with cars), to a suspected sepsis case. Got there, woman is sitting enjoying her party, why did she call us? She had a UTI and the out of hours GP had the night before, sent a prescription to a local chemist's that was 10 minutes away, would we mind going to pick them up for her?! I shit, you not.

Apparently she was told we would do it!! At the same time 3 cardiac arrest jobs came through that I could have actually used my skills at. But nope, here I was going to be at least 1.5 late off my shift because she "didn't want to ask any of her children to go drive 10 mins" to get her the prescription.

You're totally misunderstanding this strike OP.

Ambulance workers are overworked and underpaid. They are entitled to strike for fair employment terms, in the same way as any other workforce.

In practical terms what this means is some people will strike, but many will still work on those days. The ones who work, work even harder to pick up any slack.

I know this because DH is an ambulance worker. His union have voted in favour of strikes, but although he supports the strikes, he is planning to work on those days to help maintain the service.

@IsItaCowIsItaPlane

That is fucking shocking. I hope you gave her a mouthful?

@IsItaCowIsItaPlane thats absolutely dreadful but I can well imagine it happening. I believe those people should be sent a bill for time and resources wasted.
My DH was once sent to a man who had called because his bathroom extractor fan wasn't working. Christ knows how he managed to talk his way through phone triage... DH did give him a talking to.

You need to redirect your anger away from this individual person and towards the government who are already causing tragedies every single day. They are the ones you need to hold to account.

You have my full support

The strike won't make any difference to whether you can get an ambulance OP. You're unlikely to have got one last night, for example. No one was striking last night. There was a massive surge in people calling for sore throats because of the publicity for strep A.

The public needs to be educated as to when you should and when you shouldn't call an ambulance. It's not a free taxi service, which is what some people seem to think.

On top of which, they do of course need more staff, more vehicles, and better pay.

Many of these workers were on the front line during covid. Risking their own and their families' health, for a very low paid but absolutely critical role.

What have I said that makes you think I'm angry? I haven't said they shouldn't strike. I went on strikes - it's everyone's right to withdraw labour and I fully support it. I just worked in a job where if I had stopped doing face to face calls, there could have well have been a tragedy that I, personally, wouldn't have wanted to live with Everyone who did my job felt the same and our union understood and supported us in that.
So, actually, I'll do me and you can do you.

Oh I once got a job to pick up someone's remote control!! They couldn't reach it from their chair!!! Made scene on that one (made to attend, as it was a welfare job!!!), fuming!

Another time I got called to someone's gas oven being broken, but could we not approach on lights and sirens as they didn't want their family (who clearly lived nearby) to know they had called us!! Luckily we got stood down from that job after I pointed out that I wasn't a plumber!!!

@behappy1736 why don't you sign up for the job? Do you volunteer in the care sector? So you have a REAL insight as to what goes on.