I am amazed at how quiet the other Public Servants have been. We have already talked about how the covering servicemen are getting less money, in many cases, than the workers they are covering. We have also mentioned ambulance workers.
Nurses undergo a minimum of 3 years of demanding training . I know; I did it! The pay was so crap I joined the RAF and trained as a pilot, served 19 years, and am now a civil pilot, earning approximately 4 times what the average nurse does. I had to study just as hard to get my nursing qualifications as I did to get my wings, and I had to put up with a lot more ****....literally.
These nurses get just as much abuse as the police (try A & E in a City on a Friday night), are often qualified in very specialised areas (Coronary and Intensive care for example), and the average nurse still gets paid about two thirds of a firemans wage. Not only that, but they DO have the right to strike, but the main nursing union, the Royal College of Nursing, will NOT do it, BECAUSE IT WILL RISK THE LIVES OF THE PATIENTS.
It would be interesting to see, if the nurses did choose to strike, how well the services would be able to fill in covering a shift in Theatre, Intensive Care, or Coronary Care, never mind routine post operative care of a spleenectomy. I suspect it would take more than a week of training strapped to a fire hose.