‘Nurses are right to make their stand’
IN response to Colin Beardmore’s letter (Sentinel, November 11) I feel his comments are unfair.
If you were to ask any nurse why they had contemplated taking any form of industrial action, pay would be quite low in the list of grievances.
The main reason would be the lack of staff on the wards, due to many years of Conservative underinvestment and cuts, to be able to give the patients the care they deserve and the nurses want to deliver.
Sadly I belong, with many others, to a culture of nurses who have contributed to today’s sad state of affairs.
We managed with staff shortages because we stayed over our shift times to complete our tasks.
We came in on our days off and took the office work home with us. This was not right then and it isn’t now.
Nurses are now standing up for themselves as we should have done.
What all staff in the hospital want is to be able to leave at the end of the shift and think ‘job well done’.
Sadly no nurse can ever think that. They think themseves lucky if they survive it.
Mr Beardmore, the average wage means that there will be a lot of nurses earning a lot less than £30,000.
Nurses understand how hard other people work. That is not the issue.