How would you all feel if nurses went on strike?

Ive read quite a few questions about the postal strikes and seen the way some people think the postal workers have no right to stand up for what they want. The thought of most is to lie back and let the government throw at us more taxes, laws about what we can and cant do even in our own homes and yet we do nothing about it.
A lot of people get far more money than highly trained nurses get yet if they make a mistake at work it doesnt cost a life and they wouldnt be accused of manslaughter.
Majority of nurses dont do it for the money, we do it for the people we look after. yet despite this more and more paperwork is being pushed upon us and we cant do the job we trained for anymore.
the nurse of the year for 2006 is now leaving the profession as she has had enough.

What would you say if we nurses went on strike for better pay and conditions. You say we do a hard job and that we are 'angels' and that you respect what we do but would you feel the same if we went out on strike?

i understand Kamran but overwork and no staff can also cause mistakes which lead to loss of life

I'm with you on this Mossy. I can't think of many or any other unions that would roll over and let its workers receive their pay award in a split, effectively giving us a cut in pay, yet the RCN did it again. The RCN tells government its weally weally cwoss then tries to convince its members how well it stood up for us!

Our pay has suffered a further cut locally by saying we can have an extra half hour break, (unpaid of course), a master stroke that has meant we now have to "owe" 6.5 hours time to the ward because we're working just under 37.5 hours plus we now have shifts that "finish" at 20:00hrs so losing 30-90mins unsocial hours pay.

Nurses of course are generally the kind of people who by nature have to be pretty cheesed off before they even consider taking any kind of action, and yet it seems that our "good" nature is consistently abused. The difficulty is who would you get to replace nurses, I mean when the fire brigade went on strike they called out the green goddess engines and put the army to work, you could do the same with the police force, but are there really enough military nurses who aren't already deployed to replace us if we went on strike? I doubt it. I also think most nurses would find it pretty impossible to actually walk out, we know we could and would never put patient lives in jeopardy.

That leaves us with forms of working to rule, of refusing to put in the extra and very frequent, unpaid hours, of not coming in on our own time to attend meetings or undertake work where the shifts have been too busy for us to do at work such as staff appraisals, audits, research etc. The sad thing is everyone says how great nurses are, everyone seems to want to support us, it seems a shame then that year on year our pay doesn't ever seem to reflect our value. Most of us aren't looking to make a vast sum but just would like a fair award and we'd really like to receive it in full like everyone else does!

I still love my job, I still like being able to provide treatments for patients and at present I still believe the things I can do make an difference to the patients in my care. However, it is difficult to convince students coming through today that they've made the right choice in being a nurse, and I fear the numbers will decline significantly over the next 5-10 yrs and it will be interesting to see who will notice!

Good luck in your nursing and to any other nurses responding to your question.

Kuta.

i would fully support them they are treated like dirt yet do a fantastic job.

Nurses have a bigger responsibility, if they go on strike someone in hospital may die because of it, so im against it but would support for the pay rise

I think you are not paid enough & you have S&^%y hours & not enough respect. If we paid English people a proper salary in nursing then maybe we wouldnt have so many badly spoken nurses bringing in god knows what to our hospitals.

You would have my 100% backing, my son is in hospital right now and the nurses in his ward are fantastic. In fact when I went into see him yesterday, I took in some homebakes for the nurses.

I think it would teach people in general to stop taking them for granted. Why do nurses have to be professional, mothers, and **** wipers of society? It is one of the most important jobs in the world as is teaching, and countless other professions but nurses are treated like **** all the time. It's disgusting and degrading. STRIKE STRIKE STRIKE.... My baby had a heart op when she was born, without the nurses that cared for her, i would never have coped and she may not have pulled through. They are the highest people in the world and deserve a politicians pay at least

I would support them, i would not want their job, it's mainly cleaning up after patients

I do think nurses while they make a great income here in the US still are not paid enough. All of my friends that work in hospitals as nurses or any other dept have the worst and most expensive healthcare package I have ever seen. Nurses do all the work. Our Pediatrician office used to have a doc on call on weekends and after hours during the week. Now if you call with a concern you get a Triage nurse. 2 of my closest friends are RN's and I always consult them first before going to the doctor. I think nurses are treated like crap and that is why there is such a shortage. My friend just took a job that gave her a $6000 sign on bonus because they were so desperate. One of them has gone to private care because she is treated much better then when she has worked in doctors offices and hospitals.

unfortunately if it would lead to the risk of loss of life, the government wouldn't allow strikes to happen. At least not to the extent that royal mail took.

Royal mail is a private sector company and works very differently.

Plus if nurses went on strike then they lose all the public confidence. And that a few extra pennies are worth more than the people they are caring for.

We all want more money, royal mail workers don't deserve anything more than the rest of us especially from the ridiculous claims of poor conditions, oh no!, the new regime will want them to work in a different shift if they finish their work, how disgraceful of royal mail to suggest such a plan on their workers.

They would have my full support

Having been a hospital worker and a patient, and seen how hospital managements manipulate the goodwill of nurses and other employees to cover for their own failings, I would support them 100%.

I would support them but they are generally so caring it is most unlikely they would ever attempt to take away care from the sick and needy.

I would support nurses if they went on strike because I think they really do deserve more money and support from the government to make their jobs easier and less stressful. I didn't support the postal strike because I didn't think the reasons for it were that valid, but I think nurses have a better case for striking as they do a more skilled job than postal workers, work longer hours and don't get paid enough for how important their job is.

hurt

If they did, then the hospital management would , hopefully , bring in prop per cleaners to clean up the filthy wards, nurses are , to an extent responsible for the condition of the wards and beds,look no further than Maidstone General !

Its a difficult one, its easy to say i support you but what if a member of my family was admitted to hospital that day and died due to lack of available staff?

I really do believe you guys get such a bum deal but how long before public opinion turned if people started dying as a result of your strike.

Its a shame because I fully believe that if life didn't depend on your professions presence then a strike would have been held years ago. If you did ever strike i think responsibility for consequences would lie with those that have failed to meet the reasonable demands of nurses but I don't think everybody will see it that way.

Isn't there a Nurses union or something of the sort, can't they make up deals with the head of the hospitals. And of course Nurses need more rights they're not robots and I would definately not want a robot taking care of me if i fell sick. But there has to be a better way of dealing with all of these problems because patients lives are put in jeopardy. It puts you nurses in a difficult position and to get to this point, well that shows alot about the hospitals' treatment to its employees. So yes i do but only as a LAST resort!

i think id feel fine, as long as i didnt need a nurse

I used to work for the NHS but got totally sickened by the way the management treated staff. I know where your coming from with your question and think you probably would get support at first but once the government and the health board managers get there propaganda machine into full swing the public will soon change there attitude towards the nurses.The public have no idea how the management blackmail there staff i know I've been there years ago.
In that situation the management wanted us to change our terms and conditions which we refused to do, so they threatened to terminate 340 temporary employees if we did not accept there new contract.Then sent a letter to all the non affected staff to say how ashamed we should be of ourselves putting all these people out of work this is just some of the tactics the NHS bosses use to get there way.
If you did go on strike i would support the nurses full and beg the public not to believe the bull they read in the papers and on the TV reports.
Nursing is a career for people who want to make a difference,they do it to care for people not to get rich quick.

Before too long many other places are going to go on strike ..

they are watching the governments response to the post office strike and are planning their next move.

Personally i think all public sector services should be on the same band of pay .. have same pay rises each year and no more of the unfair division of money ...

My husband loves his job and i am sorry everyone works for money the love of the job is a bonus..

No one in the public services can do their jobs anymore because it is all paperwork .. targets etc .. the frustration is across the board

Basically anyone who works in the public sector has a raw rule ...

The firemen went on strike and the army had to jump in ...

Our boys and girls in the army get a raw deal too .. but strikes are not always the answer as they achieve nothing

We have to hope our management address our concerns and fight our corners

good coz they too busy lookin after themselves.LAZY

Mossy I have been a nurse and now a Midwife for 7 years and I have had enough of the understaffing and abuse we have to take, I would love to strike but I dont know if my concience could live with it. I have taken a ?postitive? step by promising myself I will get out of the proffesion by next summer before I have a cardiac arrest!!!!! Its not worth the stress and hassle for the crappy pay!

My daughter is a Sister. she is one of the Project 2000
university intake. She worked in a hospital for 2years and it
nearly killed her. At one stage she had 36 patients to look after, some high dependency, and there were two of them on the ward. She is now A sister in a surgery and loves it. 9 - 5 and no bank holidays or nights. She feels guilty about this but her health had to come first.
I think all nurses should take their mobile phone cameras to work
with them and when they see bad practice and dirty wards they
should shop the hospital. For gods sake someone has to do
something.
Most people are supportive of the nurses, if they have to go on
strike - well so be it. please, please, please do something about
our crap health service.

i would be right behind them, and in front of them, and underneath and on top of them all the way baby

I don't think you should have to go on strike, in Calif. they have gone on strike alot, what state are you in.

I fully support them if they did strike, maybe then they would not leave their country for higher pay. As for Bert's answer, nurses are not responsible for dirty wards, the management is. They need to check on the cleaners instead of sitting on their backside and doing nothing.

relieved