Dear ‘Powers That Be’,
Thank you so much for the relentless kicks to the teeth, it really has made the time and effort spent fighting a pandemic all the more worthwhile. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more valued or appreciated.
Cheers.
Yesterday whilst I was running a ward with 5 members of staff less than I should have had, firefighting to ensure the patients were safe and cared for, it was announced that we weren’t deserving of of a pay rise.
It was as if you put my tired, deflated balloon of a soul in a shredder. Not content with sucking the life out of us slowly over time, you wanted to make sure you’d really done the job.
I powered through the rest of my shift. Gulped down the ball of frustration and tried to cope. But it was coming from all angles. I had to send my ward clerk on an escort because the agency staff we’d booked didn’t show. So I answered the phones, dealt with the multiple maintenance issues, the tech going down. Dealt with the staffing problems, ran around to use equipment on other wards, completed incident forms, I could go on and on. All whilst trying to look after patients, many extremely unwell, some we were battling to save, others we were making as comfortable as possible as they came to the end of their life.
I haven’t even mentioned COVID yet. The fact that since starting back to nursing in April, after months off due to mental health issues caused by work related stress, I have worked on seven different wards. The most recent move was to a ward which functions as a general overflow ward, far from the specialty I originally applied for. We are classed as “Yellow” which in the corona traffic light system means the patients there are a ‘maybe’. Although not as intense as an area as ITU or positive wards, we are still at risk which we were reminded of last week. After nursing a patient for two days we got their covid swab result back – positive. The patient was quickly moved but we had still been exposed, we’d been wearing the basic PPE but I have little faith in gloves to the wrist, a mask that is most efficient when the infected person is wearing it rather than me, and a plastic bin bag apron that are in short supply.
There’s two points I’d like to make about that experience and how inadequacies in your government and corruption have left us exposed.
Firstly the testing. Why is it still taking days for results to come back? It not only puts us all at risk, but it delays treatment and discharges. We have patients who we can’t move to wards that are the most appropriate and safest option for them, because their swab result isn’t back. We have patients who could have been sent home days before, but due to routine delays in results we cannot discharge them.
Secondly the PPE, why has your guidance not been in line with that of the World Health Organisation? Why has procurement been such a massive issue throughout all of this? Why have you left us unprotected?
It all basically comes down to corruption in my opinion.
You exploited the situation and gave billions to your mates for inadequate or non existent services. From PPE, testing, the tracing app, track and trace service – every decision made with financial gain as the overriding priority. It cost us time and it cost us lives. The price you were clearly willing to pay.
Whilst we were fire fighting, you were figuring out how to take control of the largest organisation in Europe. The new bill you’re introducing to allow ministerial control over the NHS is hugely worrying to me as a Nurse and generally as a human with a brain. Despite the clapping all over your twitter accounts and Boris’ apparently heartfelt speech about the NHS after his firsthand experience – your actions speak far louder and your true intentions made resoundingly clear.
This week we’ve heard you voted AGAINST:
· Protecting the NHS from any foreign control in any post-Brexit trade deal.
· Protecting the quality and safety of health and social care services.
· Protecting NHS staff from having their wage cut by any future trade deal.
· Protecting patient data from being sold
· Regulating the control and price of medicines
Then you dropped the bomb that nurses and other frontline staff wouldn’t be getting any kind of pay rise because they’d already had one.
The infamous pay deal that left most of us worse off?
Only geared towards improving recruitment to the profession, with the largest increases to the wages of newly qualified staff. Little care for retention of the loyal staff who are expected to recruit and train these new starters whilst increasingly taking on more responsibility. After the sacrifices we’ve made not just during covid, but for years prior it is so incredibly disrespectful and demoralising I cannot begin to describe it to you.
I cried all night last night, and I didn’t go back in for my shift today. My resilience once again battered into non-existence. Why should we care, when you don’t?
Regretfully yours,
Sister Birsty