SISTERS ARE DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES
700 London nurses rally to support Irish colleagues over pay row strike
People are going to work and being in charge of wards and patients with little or no staff. They’re going to get tired and burned out and it’s just going to get worse and worse as the years go on.” Ms O’riordan, who has worked in London for five years, said the demonstrators wanted to send a message to colleagues in Ireland who are still in line to strike on Wednesday She added: “We’re behind them. We’re all family. Nurses are at the forefront of patient care – we receive them and we send them home. “A lot of my friends and family are nurses and I hear on a daily basis the struggles they go through.” Meanwhile, We reveal Sydney protest Irish nurses are set stage a rally in Melbourne tomorrow to show their support for striking colleagues back home.
Organiser Mark O’driscoll said he moved to Australia three months ago to work as a nurse after getting “fed up” with how nurses are treated in Ireland.
He hopes the rally will show nurses how much support they have from all around the world.
The 24-year-old, from Cork, said: “I hope it will also show the amount of nurses who would possibly come home if pay and conditions were better.”
The London and Melbourne demonstrations come after one held by Irish nurses in Sydney last week.
More than 250 health service staff gathered at the Opera House to urge the Government to increase pay and – echoing the London protesters – “Give us a reason to come home”.
The group came out to show their support for 43,000 nurses and midwives in Ireland who are going on strike next week over pay and conditions.
It is still set to go ahead after talks between the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and the Health Service Executive and Department of Health at the Workplace Relations Commission collapsed without resolution on Friday night.
The planned industrial action will be only the second time in the INMO’S 100-year history that nurses or midwives have gone on strike.
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I want the Irish system to change.. our nurses are tired & burned out AIDEEN O’RIORDAN LONDON YESTERDAY