Historic strike hits UK's National Health Service
STORY: Nurses with the United Kingdom's treasured National Health Service have begun their first labor strike in the nursing union's 106-year history, underlining the pressures facing one of the world's premiere universal healthcare systems...
... and one of several concurrent strikes hitting major British industries.
Pat Cullen is the head of the Royal College of Nursing:
"Where here because this government has turned its back on nursing and when they’ve turned their back on nursing, they've turned their back on patients and they've turned their back on the NHS."
"I would love to say I was in negotiations with the government. They are refusing to negotiate with me. They bring me into a room, they tell me I can talk about anything but pay, they close their books, don’t put an extra brown penny on the table, and they walk away and they turn their back on the profession.”
The NHS enjoys an iconic status in the UK, but its hospitals are stretched thin and face massive backlogs, severely worsened by COVID issues. On top of that, the striking nurses say they've suffered a decade of de-facto pay cuts.
Inflation in the UK has recently reached over 10% but the government says it can't afford to increase nurse pay by more than 4% or 5%. The union is demanding 19% and says low pay will create more staff shortages, with public health on the line.
These strikes, however, won't effect some critical areas like dialysis and intensive care.
''I mean, it hasn’t been an easy choice. You enter the nursing profession because you want to help people, care for people while they are unwell.”
"We have to acknowledge that we are only here because we have been pushed to this (...) and there will be further strikes, but we have to acknowledge that we aren’t here by choice.''
Labor disputes this winter have also crippled the UK's rail industry, its postal service, and airports are bracing for Christmas disruptions.
