TREAT NURSES AS VALUED WORKERS, NOT MODERN-DAY SLAVES
Nurse Lisa Kelly summed up the dilemma facing nurses and indeed all hard-pressed workers when, taking to the picket line she said, ‘we work so hard to be so poor.’ The 36-year-old explained that she didn’t go into nursing for the money. ‘No matter what comes of it, we will still care for our patients the same,’ she said.
It may be hard to believe in our thrusting free market economy of six-figure bonuses for bankers and venture capitalists that most of us don’t follow the money workwise. If we are lucky, we get into some area that interests us or that we think might bring us fulfilment and we hope for the best financially.
A few years down the road, we search the property market to buy or rent. Suddenly money becomes a headache, particularly in Dublin where locals pay a premium for everything. But all is not lost. We just might get a promotion, or take specialised training that could perhaps lead to a raise...
Pay demands are never just about pay: they are the crystallisation of a host of grievances that grind down a workforce, year after year.
Nurses complain about poor conditions but that’s shorthand for how frustrated they feel when they park on a public road near their hospital because they can’t afford the car park charges at work. Or fork out for their uniform, and leave work late every day – yet never get a cent in overtime.
The stressful work environment is underpinned by the expectation of their coping forever with staff shortages, of their running a department singlehandedly, or caring for a ward of extremely sick or distressed patients all night alone and with no break.
The reliance on agency nurses is another bugbear. It does not just come at a great financial cost to the health service, it can also sap the morale of staff who see it as confirmation of the official view of nursing as almost casual, piecemeal work. Last week, a consultant wrote to a newspaper about the ‘surprising’ lack of respect shown to nurses. The correspondent described junior staff having to pay the same for parking as visitors and how, at night, hospital grounds are dimly lit and unsafe for staff. She suggested free parking and subsidised housing for vital workers on unsociable shifts.
The working life of nurses is a microcosm of the reality facing most middle-income workers. Conditions which deteriorated under austerity have not recovered under this Government while the nebulous benefits of the crash – falling house prices and clothes or car sales – have vanished so that most people suffer high prices and poor conditions. The simple dream of home ownership and family life is fading for a young generation of Dublin workers. Given their shabby treatment, the grim conditions and poor personal prospects facing young nurses in particular, it’s hard to see what sustains them in their career other than the fulfilment from caring for patients. It’s what drives them to, as Lisa Kelly says, ‘work so hard to be so poor’. The Government may still be smarting from its capitulation to the gardaí’s demands and have many reasons to hold the line against the nurses. But they should turn the page now on decades of indifference, and treat nurses as valued workers rather than modernday slaves.