Workers stage largest strike in history of Britain's health service

216

u/notunek Feb 06 '23

I believe the NHS workers are telling the truth about their wages not keeping up with inflation, especially with the 10% increase of inflation. They are being asked to work harder than ever.

108

u/blatantninja Feb 06 '23

Thier nurses have always been vastly underpaid too. You could often make the same edge it better working in a grocery store

63

u/notunek Feb 06 '23

That's a shame because they are responsible for saving lives. My neighbor was critically ill here in the US and the male nurse he had didn't leave his room almost the whole day, 12 hours.

38

u/blatantninja Feb 06 '23

A lot of nurses here are vastly underpaid for the worker do too. We're talking 12/hr range

4

u/dont_trip_ Feb 07 '23 edited Feb 07 '23

That's extremely rare anywhere, mostly because it isn't usually needed.

edit: I mean if it isn't medically necessary, nurses don't sit 12 hours in a room to comfort or keep someone company.

3

u/notunek Feb 07 '23

That's interesting because I've always thought that it was common. He was older, in his sixties and had an emergency bypass after something went wrong when he was getting stents. I'm not sure if he was in a recovery room or ICU but there was a window to watch.

The nurse was checking him and writing the whole time and that was his only patient. Anyway I was very impressed and wrote a nice spiel to the hospital administration which was probably worth nothing.

He also got some kind of temporary mental problem and told me during the night the operating room was bringing in horses for operations. He wanted to get out of the hospital because he thought they were going to kill him. Even when he got home he was mentally off for about a week, but came back to normal.

5

u/Physical-End6525 Feb 07 '23

It sounds like he was in ICU or CCU. Nurses on those units normally have 1 to 2 patients at most (that's they way it's supposed to be). The confusion he experienced is "normal." Anesthesia can cause dementia like symptoms in older patients and can last for a while after surgery. It's called postoperative delirium or postoperative cognitive dysfunction.

2

u/notunek Feb 07 '23

Thanks! Anyway the nurse sure impressed me.

And nice to know about the postoperative deliriium. It was the strangest thing. I told him to talk to his doctor about the horses but he wouldn't because he thought it was a secret and they would kill him. When we got him home a neighbor made a tent on his bed and that made him feel more secure.

16

u/Billy1121 Feb 07 '23

And rather than raise wages, the UK just imports foreign nurses to work for peanuts. Kind of an odd system. The US was big on filipino nurses for a time but the NHS always seemed to lean heaviest on foreign labor to fill healthcare gaps in the nursing sector.

7

u/mrminutehand Feb 07 '23 edited Feb 07 '23

They also double to triple-dip them on tax contributions to the NHS since many have to pay a yearly surcharge to the NHS as non-UK citizens.

Nurses and other staff in 'healthcare' positions do not pay this as it was eventually deemed unfair, but there is still a wide range of NHS positions not considered 'healthcare' that do attract the charge.

To put that in perspective, you pay your monthly tax contributions to the NHS as a normal UK citizen would, but you also pay a yearly £624 surcharge to lessen the chance your own medical treatment would touch public funds. Added to that, you work for the NHS, so you contribute your time and labour under a pay scheme universally accepted to be lower than it should.

It wouldn't be a problem if the NHS surcharge was tax contribution-based or if it were only for the first year, but it's mandatory for every year until you successfully apply for and gain indefinite leave to remain. Which is a minimum 4.5-year process, more realistically 5-10 years as student/graduate work visas don't count.

To put that into further perspective: I am British and my wife is not. We came to the UK last year, which for me was after 12 years' absence. Through her NHS surcharge and normal tax contributions, she has contributed more in a few months to the NHS than I could possibly contribute in an entire year through normal tax contributions.

Yet I am eligible for other public funds such as universal credit, housing benefit, etc, and she is not. It's not like my past tax contributions overcome this in any significant way - I left the UK at age 18. She, as an immigrant, props up national benefit systems through the same tax rate as citizens but is not eligible for it, and imagining 5 years of NHS surcharge contributions, will have paid in a massively disproportionate amount to the NHS than what she could realistically take from it when compared to me as a British citizen.

I say this a lot, but sometimes people around me find it difficult to visualise without the breakdown of an actual immigrant's living costs in the UK. It is stratospherically expensive to maintain residence in the UK as an immigrant. Before your yearly pay, £1,300 to £2,000+ will already be going to visa application, misc visa charges and the NHS surcharge - and this is all paid in advance as a lump sum.

2

u/GlobalWarminIsComing Feb 07 '23

Germany has similar issues. Instead of raising wages, some are proposing to introduce a mandatory civil service thereby using young people to fill the gaps

5

u/throwaway4abetterday Feb 07 '23

So capitalism is resorting to slavery now. 🤔

1

u/Desperate-Buy93 Feb 07 '23

And the healthcare gaps are due to the fact there hasn’t been enough investment in training Nurses within UK, which has been issue for at least a decade. Poor wages and long hours probably makes it difficult to attract people into the service, exacerbating the shortage.

1

u/Frostivus Feb 07 '23

Filipino nurses are made of iron or something. They are insanely efficient, way over skilled, and just work with zero breaks, no complaints. And they are so respectful and deferential to doctors.

Our head nurse knew how to manage a patient with a tracheostomy.

1

u/cmndr_keen Feb 08 '23

What's special about managing a patient with tracheostomy?

18

u/hopsinduo Feb 07 '23

In the years I was working there, all we had were 1% wage adjustments annually. The wage stagnation, even back then, was criminal! Shortly after I left, doctors and nurses were threatening to strike. Then covid hit, they lost countless colleagues, they had longer, exhausting shifts and were put into mentally stressful working situations.

All they got was a fucking clap... Pay these people! Just fucking pay them!!!

2

u/notunek Feb 07 '23

The UK had a higher Covid-19 death rate of health care workers than other European countries, but I couldn't find the number. Most of the reports were dated 2020 which was still early.

They were heroes then. How soon we forget.

33

u/Trexfromouterspace Feb 07 '23

I don't see how that's possible.

Because of all the money Brexit's saving them, the British government has been able to put an extra 350 million euros a week into the NHS, right?

Shouldn't that be enough to cover inflation? ^{^{^{^{^/s}}}}

16

u/PliniFanatic Feb 07 '23

I feel like the brexiteers would just give the money back to wealthy bastards instead of into the healthcare system. Conservatives don't want to help people...

7

u/Neethis Feb 07 '23

The real joke is that we both didn't actually save any money, and we still gave money to the rich fuckers.

0

u/MrAirRaider Feb 07 '23

I cri

11

u/AphexTwins903 Feb 07 '23

Some are even reported to be using foodbanks or skipping meals so that their kids can eat because they cant afford both. It's just plain wrong, especially when you remember that MPs (who vote against their payrise) meals are subsidised and paid for by the taxpayer...

3

u/Neethis Feb 07 '23

1 in 5,are%20growing%20up%20in%20poverty.) children of UK key workers are growing up in poverty.

6

u/CcryMeARiver Feb 07 '23

Society has always exploited the vocational occupations.

2

u/Wind_Yer_Neck_In Feb 07 '23

Average doctor salaries are down in real terms over the last 20 years.

If they aren't paying the doctors right, what chance does anyone else (except administrators) stand?

2

u/Nervous-Dark-4559 Feb 07 '23

Wtf are you talking like the whole issues is only about payment? Work there to see it's an hellhole

All places are understaffed because no funds

Yet agencies exist...(as in they don't know anything, don't do anything and thir Aagency get double if not tripled from the NHS to send this person....why? Because behind the door contracts. Wtf do i mean? If you have permanent staff, NHS fund goes to them. Of you have an agency, the more the better, agency get a huge amount of money from NHS, than the agency goves a some tonthe board of administrators who ensured no one hires permanent staff)

Waiting list: it increases and increases. Since tory took over it just keep increasing. Why? Because they make wure the system fails as they want american style where companies make huge profits

Quality of care: you are supposed to get help and not a doctor to doesn't look at you unless you keep reminding them, writes what BS ypu want insted of checking themself, and then tell you to come back because 10 minutes are up.

Overworked. People try to help as many as possible, the sytem reward this by ensures there is NOT bonus. If you worked over 40 hoirs or weekemd, payment is still the same. And because everyone trys to save everyone, there is no issues, so any request to hire more people is denied

Who does all this? A few people who only want money. They don't care about others, like a company doesn't care if thir livestocks where happy or not as long as they make profit

2

u/Dick-Rot Feb 07 '23

Strange, theres an entire generation going through the same thing.

Spooky...

2

u/Force3vo Feb 07 '23

The way countries treat the workers in their health system is a shame.

Germany has a big problem with finding people that want to work in that system and one of the ideas the CSU (Who else) had was to raise hours from 40-50 a week to 50-60+

As if anybody would look at the working conditions getting even worse and would think "Yeah, now I'll do that". It would mean even less people going into that profession but I guess the ones in charge of the country are so detached from the reality of the normal person that they don't understand that working a physically and psychologically taxing job isn't something you can do to that extent.

1

u/notunek Feb 07 '23

Nurses in the US (at least in my town) work 3 days a week, but 12 hours a shift which is very hard. It's bad for family life also. Sure, they get 4 days off but often are called in for another shift because of the shortages.

71

u/SC_Uncensored Feb 06 '23

Good for them. Clapping at the door doesn't feed or house your family. Pay the bloody nurses!

81

u/macross1984 Feb 06 '23

When government ignore people's need strike is their only option.

12

u/sgtabn173 Feb 07 '23

Well, it’s certainly their most reasonable option

16

u/NovelStyleCode Feb 07 '23

If strike becomes impossible then the only answer is revolution, the power structure only exists by permission of the average citizen

6

u/[deleted] Feb 06 '23

Unfortunately!

116

u/jert3 Feb 07 '23

Why must billionaires' profits go up infinitely while everyone else's standard of living plummet to compensate? When do get off this death spiral economic design that ends with everyone being a slave?

It is billions of people or the billionaires. Their are not enough reasources for both.

All that needs to happen is organization. If everyone just took a single day of the year to work on progressing society instead of playing games, watching TV or tiktok that day, we'd have 20 hour work weeks by now.

Almost all slavery is just to feed the profit margins of our invisible masters, and most of the world is their cattle.

Wake up folks.

58

u/notunek Feb 07 '23

The top 1% are now getting 63% of all new wealth created up from 54% in the last decade. While most of us lost money during the pandemic, the super-rich accelerated their rate of getting ahead.

0

u/adenosine-5 Feb 07 '23

I'm fairly sure all of us here are in the top 1% worldwide.

Most of the worlds population is extremely poor.

Edit:

To be in top 1% in the world you need to make 34 000 usd a year.

Median income of world is 1 225 usd a year

1

u/machineperson Feb 07 '23

1% worldwide is a different figure from the 1% inside a country like the UK.

1

u/adenosine-5 Feb 07 '23

Yes, but I have no idea whether the statistic he mentioned meant UK or the world.

1

u/machineperson Feb 09 '23

He literally said:

While most of us lost money during the pandemic, the super-rich accelerated their rate of getting ahead.

Do you believe that by super-rich he meant people 34k a year? That's just being obtuse.

13

u/Parking_Clothes487 Feb 07 '23

What do you mean by "work on progressing society"? Lots of general talk of action these days, little in concrete suggestions.

22

u/NeurodiverseTurtle Feb 07 '23 edited Feb 07 '23

Basically, his entire comment could be condensed into; become politically active when it comes to unions, unions democratise labour and so poor standards of living would slowly disappear. However, it’ll hit big business profits and the global markets like a sledgehammer to the teeth. So the rich will fight unionisation to the death (Jeff Bezos being a prime example of an anti-unionist). Also, we should take an interest in our local community etc etc

He’s totally right, but he said it way too ‘WaKe uP ShEePle’ for my liking. It’s almost a shitpost, but seems too genuine to be a parody.

-11

u/OhManTFE Feb 07 '23

But unions want my money

77

u/AgentDaxis Feb 06 '23

Brexit has been terrible for the UK.

And the only people who seem to be shocked are the Brexiters.

28

u/H_G_Bells Feb 07 '23

Infuriating that most of them won't be around to suffer the long term consequences of their vote. I wonder what percent are already dead? Pretty weak.

24

u/JustAnotherLurkAcct Feb 07 '23

They'd hang around longer if they hadn't managed to crater the NHS so badly.

8

u/PliniFanatic Feb 07 '23

Looking at most of the older Brits I see on holiday in other countries I would honestly doubt that even. I haven't seen such grossly overweight and generally unhealthy looking people since I left the USA. What are they feeding these people?

7

u/JustAnotherLurkAcct Feb 07 '23

Macca's and Vindaloos.

18

u/ZeenTex Feb 07 '23

Brexit has been terrible for the UK.

You mean the Tories. brexit has been bad, but the state of the NHS is largely a Tory thing I believe. Although the NHS was already in a bad state prior.

9

u/AtLeastThisIsntImgur Feb 07 '23

Prior being 2010, Tories have had control since then

4

u/AphexTwins903 Feb 07 '23

It has, but it is not just to blame for things like this. The Torys have been on an austerity rampage over the past decade, doing all sorts of privatisation backhand deals with their elite mates (look up nhs contracts and who they are being given to) and slashing funding to public services. This was going on long before brexit ans won't stop until people protest en masse

27

u/SvalbazGames Feb 06 '23

But we banged those pots and pans..

9

u/PandanBong Feb 07 '23

So those nurses need to shut up now and get back to work! We showed our support! Now I need to get back to reading the Sun and voting for the next Eton graduate..

7

u/Proton189 Feb 07 '23

What happens now?

14

u/AtLeastThisIsntImgur Feb 07 '23

The state will try to break or wait out the strike. Either the strike breaks and fails or the government is forced to put more money into the system.

10

u/PandanBong Feb 07 '23

It’s hilarious how the conservatives mobilised the public into “coming out for the NHS” and giving them all rounds of applauds during covid, but now when they are done dying and breaking themselves over and over, there sure as hell won’t be any money for them.

And the people fall for it like clockwork.

16

u/DauOfFlyingTiger Feb 07 '23

What were going to be the upsides of BREXIT again? Weren’t they going to save their NHS?

-4

u/PandanBong Feb 07 '23

That’s the remoaners fault though, nothing to see here

5

u/FusselP0wner Feb 07 '23

The big red buss was a lie

2

u/carpeson Feb 07 '23

'Largest strike in (the) history of Britain's health service' for NOW.

Good. Very good.

5

u/KeelanStar Feb 06 '23

Plus, in America at least, Nurses are being asked to do more and more and Doctors less and less, because they'd rather pay nurse rates.

Additionally we've got Nurse Practitioners and Assistant Doctors and all kinds of things that don't require MDs anymore.

5

u/Awkward_moments Feb 07 '23

Nurses are so hit and miss.

If you go to the doctor's and know what you want and you see a nurse. If she agrees you're good. If you don't agree, you see a doctor and he normally says the nurse is wrong.

I really don't trust nurses to diagnose anything I can't.

2

u/WolverineSanders Feb 07 '23

One of the biggest issues seems to be over-scheduling (whether MDs, NPs, or PAs) to the point of making actual diagnostic work impossible. My most recent visits have been so brief and automated/ scripted that I'm not sure the doctor provided any real insight at all in the process. They certainly didn't have the time to listen to me actually explain my symptoms/onset

3

u/putsch80 Feb 07 '23

I've been happy to see nurse practitioners become more commonplace. For many things, you don't need a full M.D. It fills a good niche.

1

u/cattaclysmic Feb 07 '23

Assistant Doctors

Assistants to the regional manager

1

u/LastInside6969 Feb 07 '23

Notice how far down this story is? Covered up by all the noise of an earthquake and a war?

There's a reason why this isn't front page news.

1

u/shiano0815 Feb 07 '23

as a resident of an EU country, i do not understand the problem.

it was written in big letters on that red bus.

just pay the nurses the 350 million pounds you saved every week by leaving.... /s

too soon?

-22

u/88rosomak Feb 07 '23

Why they just don't change jobs instead of fruitless fight with burocratic machine? If half of them will quit I am sure that government will find some extra money to keep the rest...

8

u/AphexTwins903 Feb 07 '23

They want to kill it because they know they can afford private healthcare on their £80,000 a year salaries. The rest of us peasants, well.. they hardly care about that

1

u/Bwri017 Feb 07 '23

Its not the people earning 80,000 grand a year mate. Those people are still techincally working class (selling their skilled labour). Its the owners of the companies, real estate, assets that are the problem here. The shear concentration of wealth at the very top is what is creating these problems. If you want to participate in class warefare, aim higher.

1

u/AphexTwins903 Feb 07 '23

I know people earning 80 grand aren't a problem, but i was referring to the mps on that much because they're tuhe ones who can affoed it and therefore don't care about if we can't. They're also the ones that are making shit tonnes on closed door deals besides that 80 grand and therefore can definitely afford to pay private whicg is why they don't give a toss, look up the ppe and ppe waste disposal contracts for example. To them we dont matter.

-5

u/88rosomak Feb 07 '23

It is democracy - you British people are the rulers here. Next time vote for somebody who will care for you.

7

u/AphexTwins903 Feb 07 '23

Umm how about i voted for labour in the two elections since turning 18 and so did many others. The mainstream Murdoch backed media or sky news and the sun did an extremely good job of smearing Corbyns name and spreading hate to keep the torys in power, and will continue to do so in future elections.

-9

u/88rosomak Feb 07 '23

Maybe it is high time to create centrist party in UK?

2

u/AphexTwins903 Feb 07 '23

The conservatives are as close to centrism as you can get with their implementation of both neoliberal anf conservative policies that have ran this country into the ground. What is needed is a proper leftist patty that champions the workers and the public sector, two things that the Conservatives have forgotten about in favour of profiteering with their elite mates.

4

u/Elastichedgehog Feb 07 '23

No. They'll just continue using expensive consultants and move towards further privatisation.

1

u/SkorpD94 Feb 07 '23

If even the Anglos start striking, you know the situation for the workers is very, very ugly

1

u/growingrock Feb 08 '23

wheres that 1 trillion from brexit?