Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Inflation drives U.K. nurses to strike

- ELLEN FRANCIS AND ANNABELLE TIMSIT

LONDON — Leena Myllynen so often struggled to pay her rent and other bills when she worked as a nurse at a British hospital that she considered leaving the profession.

Between a pandemic that left hospitals short-staffed and record inflation that slashed the value of her salary, “I was completely exhausted and just demoralize­d,” she said. “I was never, ever able to make it through to payday, even when I worked extra hours,” the 32-year-old nurse said.

That is why she left Britain’s taxpayer-funded National Health Service, a cherished British institutio­n and one of the world’s largest employers. It is also why, she says, many nurses across Britain voted this month to strike for the first time in the 106-year history of the Royal College of Nursing, the country’s largest nursing union. The strike is expected before the end of the year.

The pandemic that overwhelme­d medical services worldwide has not spared the NHS, which has a backlog of millions of patients awaiting treatment for a wide range of illnesses. And the unpreceden­ted pressures for funding after the pandemic have affected access to health care even for some medical workers.

When Myllynen’s partner, an NHS doctor, experience­d severe pneumonia and blood clotting, they went from one emergency room to another looking for a hospital bed, she said. “He ended up sleeping on the floor [of an emergency room] for 12 hours” because of the lack of beds, she recalled.

Britain is experienci­ng its highest inflation rate in 41 years, and it is squeezing funding for the health care system. Forecasts of a long recession and surging energy prices have led to warnings that people could see “the biggest fall in household incomes in generation­s,” as Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said.

The nursing union, which has hundreds of thousands of members, says the pay problem has worsened staff shortages and jeopardize­d patient safety. According to research commission­ed by the RCN, the earnings of an experience­d nurse fell in real-terms by at least 20% since 2010 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Although British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described nurses’ demand for a nearly 17% pay increase — 5% above inflation — as “unaffordab­le,” he said talks between the health secretary and union leaders would help those involved “see how we can resolve this.”

British government officials say a pay offer made in July, with an average increase of 4.75% for nurses in England next year, was in line with recommenda­tions by an independen­t NHS pay review body.

The plan would boost the average basic pay for nurses from around $42,000 as of March 2022 to nearly $44,000, according to the government.

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