It’s just about the worst weather imaginable to be standing on a picket line, so tomorrow I’ll be bringing hot tea and coffee to the nurses outside the nearest hospital taking part in the strikes, to show support.
Because of course we should be supporting them. It’s an absolute no-brainer.
Of all the industrial action taking place this month – by hardworking people now effectively earning less than they were a year ago, while the price of everything rockets all around them, who simply want to get by – this is the most emotive.
These nurses were the ones who held up the infamous iPads on Covid-isolated wards, so people could say goodbye to their loved ones during the pandemic, who risked their own health, and that of their families, struggling into work with inadequate or no PPE.
And that’s just the most dramatic, horror movie-esque version of the tireless, thankless work they do day in, day out, all year, every year.
Nurses are there for us at the very worst of times, dealing with gross bodily fluids, walking towards danger and frightening situations, staying calm, helpful and efficient as lives change forever around them, and people deal with that in the many ways they deal with that.
There are too many stories of the humbling, unforgettable kindness of nurses – strangers, usually going well above and beyond their duties – to fit here, or anywhere.
Tomorrow’s strike comes in a week where a report concluded that a “decade of neglect” by successive Tory governments has weakened the NHS to a point that it won’t be able to tackle the backlog of seven million patients.
There’s not enough staff, or equipment, and the buildings are too outdated. Despite these hopeless conditions, nurses turn up to work every day, and try to do their best. And after long, exhausting shifts, some of them have had to resort to queuing at foodbanks on their way home.
Although the strike will clearly cause some delays and disruption – it has to, to be effective – no lives will be put at risk.
There is a “life-preserving care model” that guides the Royal College of Nursing’s industrial action, which “has the preservation of patient safety at its core”.
Clapping on doorsteps, though well intentioned, made absolutely no difference. It was an empty gesture. It’s time to show these nurses a tiny sliver of the care they’ve shown all of us for their entire working lives, to turn up for them like they always do for us.
Donate to their industrial action fund if possible ( www.rcn.org.uk ), take them a cuppa, do whatever you can.
Support the nurses, and all the other workers forced to strike.
