Underpaid health care workers with hands in their hair

For years, the UK government has been reluctant to invest in healthcare, leaving Britain with a serious problem.

Great Britain on Monday 2023 February 06 the British unions warned:

A “Constant cycle of national NHS pay strikes will continue for as long as it takes,”

The same as in Belgium many people came onto the streets to applaud the health workers during the Covid period.

In all sorts of manners during the Corona period, they tried to make people aware of the need to be vaccinated. But there were people who were not willing to protect themselves, but worse, not to protect others, by getting vaccinated. Many unvaccinated people ended up in British, French and Belgian hospitals afterwards, where they were worse off than if they had been vaccinated. Their refusal to be vaccinated forced nursing staff to work much harder than would otherwise have been necessary. In the mean time people hang out white sheets and came on the streets to applaud for all those who were trying to help the very sick people, of which many died, but also many were saved.

Though after the Corona crisis passed away many have forgotten all the work those doctors, nurses and ambulance drivers did.

People should know it is not applause those health workers need. They need to receive our respect and the correct payment for the work they do.

The last few days, the British but also Belgian health workers raised their voices to let their government know they need more people and more means. In Britain, tens of thousands of nurses and ambulance workers downed tools in the biggest-ever health service walkout.

In Britain the last few years several ‘savings’ and reorganisations were done in the health sector for reducing investment in it. Downing Street repeated its stubborn refusal to reopen talks on 2022-23’s below-inflation 4.75 per cent salary deal, despite an improved offer from the Welsh Labour government late last week.

Friday’s proposal — an additional 3 per cent on top of this financial year’s deal, of which 1.5 per cent is a permanent increase — saw most health unions in Britain, postpone Sunday’s planned walkouts west of the Severn Bridge, but Unite ambulance members were still out on strike.

Unite and GMB paramedics, called handlers and other staff at ambulance trusts also joined the massive industrial action, which NHS leaders said caused “huge disruption.”

Ahead of further strikes by physiotherapists on Thursday and ambulance staff — including Unison members — on Friday, union leaders urged Tory ministers to act on years of falling take-home wages, saying the situation is driving a worker exodus and endangering patient safety.

It is incredible how the UK government has undermined the once wonderful health system by not wanting to invest in it since the Brexit affair, even though Brexit politicians had said the NHS was (allegedly) losing 75,000 UK pounds a year by staying in the EU. After the Brexit, however, that money never surfaced. And the government was not really willing to fund its health workers.

Last year in October, at the sixth annual event of Unite, the newspaper of the United Socialist Party (UK), the British trade unionist who has been the general secretary of Unite since 26 August 2021, Sharon Graham warned already that they would not accept further attacks on workers’ living standards.

With all the inflation going on there is good reason now to let the action go ahead because it would be

“disingenuous for us to put an offer to pause the strike in the full knowledge it was going to get rejected, but we’re tantalisingly close to a deal in Wales.”

She contrasted progress in talks with the devolved administration there to Westminster’s approach, where Tory ministers

“just always sing ‘la la la la la’ and hope that the year goes by and we will forget what’s happened.”

For months, this attitude is the trademark of the heads of government in both Belgium and Britain, proving by it, that they do not have their feet on the globe at all and have no sense of what it is like for ordinary citizens in their countries. Because since the war in Ukraine, those citizens have been whipped around their ears with ever-increasing prices for food and energy.

In London, nursing staff still face a housing problem because their salaries do not outweigh the cost of living.

After all their efforts, for which they do not feel recognised, the nursing staff is ‘spent’. They are really at the end of their rope. To continue like this, they can no longer see any satisfaction in not being able to provide the care the patients need.

There

“isn’t going to be any other way to end this dispute”

until Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Steve Barclay agree to talk pay for 2022-23 and not just for 2023-24, Sharon Graham said.

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents health trusts, backed the call, telling Sky News that ministers must engage with unions on this year’s wages as health services face a “hugely disruptive week.”

Northern Irish nurse and trade unionist Pat Cullen, General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) hailed nurses for

“trying to bring their NHS back from the brink.”

Speaking at a picket line outside St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, west London, she added:

“They will continue to do this for as long as it takes for this government to actually wake up and listen to their voice on behalf of patients.

“This government has chosen to punish nurses instead of getting round a table and talking to me about pay in the same way as they’ve done in Wales and Scotland.”

Walkouts north of the border have been avoided so far after SNP ministers upped their salary offer to 7.5 per cent before Christmas.

Labour accused the PM’s under-pressure administration of “sitting this one out” when it comes to negotiating with striking workers.

The British politician and barrister who replaced Corbyn as Labour Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party since 2020 and then had to see how stupid the Johnson government’s key scientific advisers had embraced the controversial theory that the best way to limit the long-term effects of the pandemic was to allow the virus to spread naturally and thus generate “herd immunity,” making the burden for the healthworkers incredibly difficult.

Britain initially did not adopt the kind of aggressive measures to combat the pandemic that had been undertaken in much of the rest of the world, but when the hospitals were full and healthworkers were nearly drowning in overwork, the government had to switch gear.

Now a few month further the party leader who has himself faced criticism for refusing to commit to inflation-matching wage rises for public-sector workers should Labour win the next general election, had to admit that the strikes were a

“badge of shame for the government.”

He added:

“I think many people will be absolutely flabbergasted that the government is still sitting this one out, not showing any leadership in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, making the situation much worse than it otherwise would be.”

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Preceding

Home care industry not valued

More care needed for older getting population

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Additional reading

1. Pandemic no cover to force through wage cuts
2. The Telegraph for Tuesday 2022/10/25
3. Danny Boyle presenting his selection for 2022 November 11
4. What happened over the weekend in the weekend of 2022 12-14 November
5. The Telegraph Frontpage for Friday 2022 November 25
6. The Telegraph Frontpage for Saturday 2022 November 26
7. The Telegraph Frontpage for 2022 November 30
8. The Telegraph Frontpage for Monday 2022 December 05
9. Chopper’s politics for 2022 December 06
10. The Telegraph Frontpage for Wednesday 2022 December 07
11. The Telegraph Frontpage for Thursday 2022 December 08
12. The Telegraph looking at days lots of Britains shall not be working
13. The Telegraph Frontpage for 2022 Wednesday December 14
14. The Telegraph Frontpage for Thursday 2022 December 15
15. The Telegraph Frontpage for Friday 2022 December 16
16. The Telegraph Frontpage for Mondy 2022 December 19
17. The Telegraph Frontpage of Tuesday 2022 December 20
18. The Telegraph Frontpage for Wednesday 2022 December 21
19. The Telegraph Frontpage for Thursday 2022 December 22
20. The Telegraph Frontpage for Friday 2022 December 23
21. The Telegraph Frontpage for Saturday 2022 December 24
22. The Telegraph Frontpage for Friday 2022 December 30
23. The Telegraph for Thursday 2023 January 05
24. Telegraph Frontpage Saturday 2023 January 07
25. The Telegraph Frontpage for Wednesday 2023 January 11
26. The Telegraph Frontpage for Wednesday 2023 January 18
27. The Science Says Everyone Needs a COVID-19 Booster Shot—and Soon
28. Man vs ‘Terminator’ – The Battle Of Covid 19 Rages Worldwide
29. Too Many People Are Dying Right Now 
30. You’ll Probably Get Covid-19 Eventually. But Avoid It for as Long as You Can.
31. Don’t Get Vaccinated, It’s Dangerous
32. Freedom for whom?
33. Freedom is unthinkable without responsibility
34. Why haven’t you ended the pandemic

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