'The NHS is run on good will': Derry & Strabane reps' solidarity with workers

Addressing the chamber Andrew Doherty from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) explained that there are almost 3,000 unfilled nursing posts in the Health and Social Care service and a similar proportion in the nursing care sector.

He said more than half of Northern Ireland’s nurses work additional hours at least once a week and almost half do so for no pay, and that a RCN Northern Ireland survey revealed 83% said staffing levels on their last shift were not sufficient to meet the needs of patients safely and effectively.

Mr Doherty also told councillors that the cost of filling gaps in the nursing workforce in Northern Ireland by deploying agency staff has doubled from around £53M in 2018/19 to just over £110M in 2020/21, with the expected figure for 2021/22 much higher again.

Ms Lorraine Hartin from NIPSA added that healthcare workers are working hours beyond what they are getting paid for, some are doing two and three jobs beyond what they should be doing.

Explaining why UNISON workers who voted 97% in favour for strike action have commenced action short of strike, Mr Andy McKane from UNISON said: “The NHS is running on good will and the reason we implemented action short of strike is to show how much good will is needed to run the health service.

“When you go into Altnagelvin and see people in green polo shirts – the porters, the domestics, the catering assistants, they are all low paid workers. The minimum wage is going to £10.41 next April, at the minute all these workers you see in Altnagelvin in green, to use as an example, are all being paid under that at present, this is how badly paid the NHS staff is.

“These are all local workers, the low paid worker generally is the local worker and you will find your support service staff who we represent, the large, large percentage live within the city limits.”

Stating that the nurses should not have to be forced to take strike action, Sinn Féin councillor Christopher Jackson, an employee of the Western Health and Social Care Trust said: “None of our health care workers should have to take strike action for fair pay and safe staffing conditions but that’s the reality we are in and anything we can do to save and protect our health service we will.

“From our party’s perspective, we stood in the last election with a clear commitment that we want to invest £1 billion into our health service and we want to deliver a multi-year budget that will give health trusts that security in terms of budgeting in a multi-year cycle. The reality is we haven’t been able to do that because of one political party.”

“The people living in this part of the world deserve better and we need to be doing everything we can to try and protect the nurses, stand up for our health care workers and ensure our public sector isn’t decimated.”

Pleading with the DUP to ‘get back to work, SDLP councillor Brian Tierney added: “No-one goes into nursing for the money. I know many nurses who work with the Trust and I know many of them went into the health service and the nursing profession because they have a loving and caring nature and because they want to look after people when they are at their most vulnerable. They should be paid fairly for that, they should have the right amount of colleagues with them on the ward or in the community to support them and they should feel the value of that work when they are carrying it out.”

“There are 3,000 unfilled nursing posts across the North, imagine if they were filled the pressure that would take off our current nurses. Imagine what that would do to the health service and how patients are looked after and treated.”

People Before Profit Councillor Maeve O’Neill, also a Western Trust worker said the ‘reality on the ground is not good in work and trying to survive out of work because of the mediocre pay that health and social care workers are getting’.

The councillor then spoke about the stress many of the staff are experiencing.

She said: “The health service was on its knees before Covid ever hit and that has added further stress to the service, but also the workers themselves and the cost of that stress on the health and wellbeing of workers we are still waiting to see the full outworking of that.

“A lot of workers have taken action on that stress by leaving employment and we have seen record numbers of staff leaving over the last year.”

Stating that the NHS ‘at tipping point of collapse’, UUP Alderman Derek Hussey commented: “Undoubtedly we are facing, and have been for decades, a severely deteriorating health service.

“We now have nurses and other staff within the health service fighting to retain that service and it’s incumbent on the rest of us to realise that we cannot afford for the current situation to be terminal.”

Stating the DUP’s support for fair pay and safe working conditions for health service workers and the need for more resources, Alderman Maurice Devenney turned to the calls for his party to return to the Assembly.

He said: “Regarding the calls for the DUP to get back to work, if Stormont was up and running today I can assure you this issue would still be unaddressed because at the end of the day, where would Stormont find the funding to support the pay rise?”

“We all know there is a cake which is a certain size, where do we take the funding from? Do we take it from an education system that is faltering? Do we take it from DfI Roads where there are issues? So which department do we take it from?”

Expressing his solidarity with the nurses and healthcare workers, Independent councillor Gary Donnelly stated: “It would depress you and when you see people trying to score points with orange and green it just adds to that sense of despair. It almost adds to this attitude that if we get Stormont up and running everything would be ok.

“That couldn’t be further from the truth and if anyone thinks that everything is ok in the Free State, it’s not and it’s not fit for purpose.”

"I do agree it makes sense to have an all-Ireland health service. I have stood with these workers and they are very demoralised and they feel very unappreciated and a lot of them want out.”

Agreeing with the previous speaker, Aontú councillor Emmet Doyle said: “These problems weren’t manufactured in the last year. This idea that the DUP will go back to work tomorrow and all will be fine is nonsense because some of the parties that are standing outside hospitals getting their photos taken with striking workers are the ones who are partly behind this crisis and that’s a fact.”

“It really does disturb me when we hear it will all be grand when Stormont goes back, this is something that has been on the desks of Ministers, of MLAs, of parties in the North for decades and none of them wanted to sort it out.

“Absolute solidarity with the workers because I see what some of them are getting, I have family members who are nurses who are literally paying to go to work because they value their patients so much, but let’s get away from this twaddle of orange and green because orange and green have been in charge one way or the other for the last 20 years and they have got us here, it’s not just London and it’s not just been inflation and the economy.”

Gillian Anderson

Local Democracy Reporter