We are asking the patients for baked beans..

NURSE CARMEL O’BOYLE: WAGES AREN’T KEEPING UP

CARMEL has been forced to take a part-time job on top of her nursing role because of her soaring bills.

The single mum from Liverpool earns an annual salary of £28,000 as a nurse practitioner at an NHS primary care walk-in centre.

She also teaches clinical skills at a local university and marks assignments outside of her NHS shifts to earn enough money to get by.

She told the Mirror local hospitals have started asking patients to donate to the staff foodbank rather than buy a box of chocolates to thank them for their care.

Carmel, 42, said: “We’re hearing stories such as a mum with three kids whose cards were refused in the supermarket who ended up being given food by a priest.

“We have hospitals in our region who are encouraging patients, instead of buying a box of chocolates at the end of their stay to say thank you to the healthcare teams, to donate stuff to the staff food bank. ‘Have you got a tin of beans instead of a box of Roses?’

“Staff have said they can’t accept certain things from the foodbank because they can’t afford to heat them or cook it at home. It’s just mind blowing for degree-educated professionals.”

Carmel also volunteers as a Royal College of Nursing branch organiser and added: “We can’t recruit and we can’t retain staff because they just can’t afford to be here. We have students who are not coming into the profession but are going to supermarket chains with their graduate programmes because the wages are higher.

“These are dire circumstances because we desperately need more nurses in this country, with the population getting bigger and people living longer with more complex problems.

“None of us came into the profession to be millionaires and we recognise that, but we should be able to pay our bills. Anything that the Government has awarded us has been below inflation and therefore it’s a pay cut.

“My energy bill has just tripled. Where does the money come from when your wages don’t keep up?” Carmel lives with her 15-year-old son and she continued: “I have to supplement my wage and I’m in a privileged position that I have a very good support network, but lots of people just don’t have that and are really frightened.

“The appetite has really changed because a few years ago nurses were adamant that they wouldn’t strike.

“Now things have got so bad they don’t feel there’s anything else they can do to get the Government to listen.”

Where does the money come from if your pay doesn’t keep up?

ON THE DOUBLE Carmel had to take on a second job