Making the gut-wrenching decision to strike doesn’t come easily to me but low pay is forcing me into this position.
Every day I see patients and staff suffer due to a lack of resources. Patients face long waits in the back of ambulances without a toilet before a hospital can find them a bed.
This could be after they’ve already waited hours for a vehicle to arrive. Some are even dying before an ambulance turns up because there aren’t enough crews.
Staff are leaving the service, not enough are joining and low wages are to blame. I probably won’t be in this job this next year as I’m already struggling to make ends meet.
My frontline shift is 12 hours on a two-day-two-night rota. Someone at my level can expect to make £29,000 or a little more depending on where they live. Rest days are crucial to my mental health. Without time to decompress, you risk issues such as burnout, PTSD and stress-related illness.
But it’s now normal for me to work on two or even three of my rest days. This is so that I can afford a roof over my family’s head and food on the table.
It’s the reason I will be doing overtime shifts again in the run-up to the festive season. Before, it was just to have extra money to buy Christmas presents for my children. Now the money is essential so that my family can afford to live.
Having to choose between paying bills and my mental health is wrong. I’m also missing out on precious time with my children, such as sitting down with them for an evening meal. However, I live in a single-income household and don’t qualify for benefits.
This winter is set to be more challenging than ever given the growing staff shortages. Working 60-plus hours a week during winter is already the norm.
The pressures will be made even worse by the crisis in social care. That means delays in hospitals discharging patients. Working like this is not sustainable for me or my colleagues. We are there for people in their darkest moments. Yet we feel we’re being hung out to dry by the Government.
A pay rise that is at least in line with inflation would mean I could afford to stay in the job I love.
