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Vol. 78/No. 45      December 15, 2014

 
Health workers strike for pay,
against cuts in UK
 
BY TONY HUNT
LONDON — Members of health unions in England and Northern Ireland walked off the job for four hours Nov. 24 demanding the government pay all National Health Service staff a 1 percent wage increase recommended by the NHS Pay Review Body. Some 60 percent are not getting this raise, however, as the government is excluding those getting annual incremental raises.

The action was the second such protest this year and took place against the backdrop of growing media attention on the crisis in the state-run health care system, which includes budget cuts, declining quality of care and escalating medical staff workloads.

Lively picket lines were set up outside hospitals and ambulance stations. “We’ll need to keep taking action until they pay us,” said Julie Beattie, a union steward for the Royal College of Midwives at the Royal Oldham Hospital. The RCM conducted its first strike ballot earlier this year. NHS workers will be “working to rule” for the next four days, Beattie said, taking their breaks and not doing unpaid overtime.

“The problem with health care is people running it are in Ivory Towers, thinking of pound [£] signs, not the patients and those who work for the health service,” said Steve Kilduff, a Unison steward at Tameside General Hospital in Greater Manchester. “There’s less staff to look after more patients with fewer beds. Its devastating.”

Meanwhile, the BBC reported Nov. 26 on findings by the King’s Fund, a think tank dedicated to the NHS budget. “Unless more money is found a financial crisis is inevitable next year and patients will bear the cost as waiting times rise and quality of care deteriorates,” King’s Fund Chief Executive Chris Ham said.

The Daily Telegraph reported Nov. 21 on the growing waiting times for emergency care in England: “Last week, more than 6,000 were forced to wait up to 12 hours on trolleys, compared with 2,596 in the same week in 2013.”

The Colchester Hospital in Essex has come under scrutiny after reporting 563 serious incidents over two years. Most recently a major incident was declared, according to the Guardian, after a surprise inspection of one ward found alleged “inappropriate restraint, resuscitation and sedation of elderly people, some with dementia.”
 
 
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