Government’s 1% pay rise offer to nurses is simply appalling

THE Chancellor told us the cost of the Covid-19 pandemic was some £390 billion. How that is made up is still a mystery.

The one bit that we all probably know is the £22 billion on ‘Track and Trace’, who were not in the business of making anything like PPE but tracking and tracing other possible contacts of an infected person.

I’m still not sure just what is the difference between tracking and tracing?

What we have been told just a few days ago is that lockdown for all of us was the most effective way of reducing infection, plus the 21 million vaccines used so far. That should carry a cost of £7 million at three for a £1.

To give all adults two jabs, that’s about 110 million vaccines, would carry, say, a £35-£40 million price tag. That’s a bit cheaper than £22 billion on looking for people.

Then there is the cost in lives. Those people who cared for the infected. Not just staff that we have learned to call the front line staff – almost like front line soldiers – the nurses who physically handled the infected patients, but also the support staff without whom the front line staff could never fully do their tasks.

I have seen one figure that suggests 231 front line care staff have died of Covid-19. That’s as many as the deaths in the Falklands War.

In an enclosed environment such as a hospital, the virus wandered – invisible – and fatally touched other hospital staff.

Hospital staff who knew that could – would – happen. One day they, whoever they are, will tell us how many, how big, was the cost in lives of caring for the infected.

And for 18 months... 550 days... the job of caring has been done by staff who knew they were in the danger zone of infection.

I know that a lump sum has been given to dependants of staff who have died, but I would also like to have seen a pension given to financially support any children until they finish their education.

They say nurses and doctors do stand a little away from the emotions of dying patients; I think they have to. But when it is happening 10, 15, 20 times a week and every week?

I can’t imagine how they can emotionally stand away from it. We have, sometimes, witnessed their reactions when they have talked about their caring job and they sometimes are close to tears for themselves because they have been hurt.

It was said of one young nurse, newly qualified and posted to a hospital as recently as September 2020, that she had seen more dead patients in five months than many nurses had seen in their entire careers.

What our nurses have done is something quite exceptional, extraordinary, magnificent. I don’t know how we, through our Government, should properly acknowledge that. We all owe them an emotional debt for they were there should we desperately need them.

We all want to show our thanks and maybe that should be something we should all publicly talk about and we all decide – like a plebiscite. We tell the Government what it is and the Government just does it without question. I believe whatever it is, it should be a once only... a thank you, from us.

The Chancellor and Government should apologise for such an appalling error of judgement with an offer of a 1% increase in salary. Put their pay at a level commensurate to the demands of the job and skills needed. Then publicly promise... never again will our NHS nursing staff be so badly, abominably served in staffing levels, equipment and salaries. Don Frampton Newton Abbot

Devon