The United Kingdom's health service is under pressure as nurses and ambulance crews join an unprecedented strike threatening to strain Britain's health system.
Tens of thousands of health professionals, including nurses and ambulance staff, walked off the job on Monday. Many unions are calling the recent strike the biggest in the history of the nation's public health system.
UK Health System Under Pressure
It is also the latest in a series of walkouts that have disrupted the lives of British residents for several months. The strikes are where workers, especially those in the public sector, demand a salary increase to keep up with double-digit inflation.
The recent strikes include teachers, train drivers, airport baggage handlers, border staff, driving instructors, bus drivers, and postal workers. Over the last decade, salaries of teachers, health workers, and many other professionals have fallen in real terms, they argued. As per the Associated Press, this comes as a cost-of-living crisis fueled by rising food and energy prices left many residents to suffer in paying their bills.
A trainee nursing associate at a trauma center in Birmingham, Central England, Victoria Busk, said that hospitals were already understaffed and that nurses "run off our feet 24/7." She added that they need people to want to come into the profession. This would only be the case if the government raised wages and ensured that it was something people wanted to do.
In December, the annual inflation rate of Britain was 10.5%, the highest in the last 41 years. However, the conservative government argued that giving public sector workers 10% higher salaries would only result in higher inflation.
Now, the latest strike mounts even more pressure on the state-funded National Health Service, which is already struggling under demand from winter viruses, staff shortages, and backlogs built up during the coronavirus pandemic.
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Series of Workers' Strikes
The latest walkout will also be followed by another strike by nurses on Tuesday, ambulance staff on Friday, and physiotherapists on Thursday. In a statement, Medical Director Stephen Powis said that these strikes would make this week the most disruptive in the history of the NHS, according to Reuters.
Ethna Vaughan, a nurse, said that the British government needs to listen to workers and discuss pay rather than just saying that the NHS does not have the money for the issue. She was part of a demonstration held outside St. Thomas' Hospital in central London.
In a letter to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) trade union requested to bring the nursing strike to a swift close by providing meaningful offers. However, a spokesperson for Sunak on Monday said there were no plans for the prime minister to get involved in the talks.
As the health workers continue their strike, they have caused tens of thousands of appointments and operations to be canceled. However, authorities said that if residents have a hospital appointment in England, they should still go unless told otherwise, said BBC.
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