It should be illegal for nurses to go on strike. It should be a criminal offence. Why? For one very simple reason - if nurses go on strike, people will die. And we cannot allow that.
There is really only one issue at play here, and it’s not about how much nurses are paid. It’s not about whether or not they are paid enough, it’s about whether nurses going on strike will lead to people dying. And it obviously will.
It is morally unconscionable for nurses to go on strike.
Nurses in the UK take a pledge, the Nightingale Pledge. That pledge clearly states, and I’m quoting now:
“I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly, to pass my life in purity and to practise my profession faithfully. I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous…as a 'missioner of health' I will dedicate myself to devoted service to human welfare.”
Patrick Christys says nurses have already received pay rises in recent years.
Image: GB News
So, going on strike clearly goes against that pledge. How does not helping to make sick people better help human welfare? I would also argue that going on strike over pay is mischievous.
Nurses do a tremendous job. A difficult job. At times, an incredibly grim job. I have never saved a life and I am in awe of what nurses do to be there for people and loved ones in their times of need. But they’ve had two pay rises in two years.
A rise of 3% in July 2021 and a rise of 4.5% in July 2022.
The average salary of a nurse is about £32 grand.
You simply cannot go on strike over pay when you’ve had two pay rises in two years. If they’re not happy with their pay rise, they should take it up with their union. Talking of unions, this is the point.
How on earth do The Royal College of Nursing big wigs look themselves in the mirror? They clearly feel that they did a bad job at negotiating and now they’re trying to save face by playing roulette with peoples lives.
Train workers or bus drivers going on strike is one thing, but nurses is a different thing altogether.
They say that their strike will only affect non-urgent care. So, stuff that’s not life threatening now. But those things can become life threatening for patients very quickly. When they go on strike, perhaps somebody won’t get a lump checked, or a wound will become infected and they get sepsis…
I can understand that nurses want more pay. I can understand that they may be struggling with the cost of living crisis. But so is everybody else.
We locked this country down during Covid to protect the NHS, that cost people jobs, money, livelihoods…does the taxpayer really have to fork out now for more money for nurses in the middle of a cost of living crisis?
It’s a deeply uncomfortable thing to say, because nurses literally save lives and they are amazing people, but right now, in the current time we live in, I think they’re paid enough for what they do and if they vote to strike they’ll have blood on their hands…