RCN nurses strike Northern Ireland: I am nursing 42 years but am considering moving to supermarket work

Pamela McMullan, a Band Five Staff Nurse on the picket line at Lagan Valley Hospital, believes the media are wrongly reporting that nurses are typically being paid £29k a year.

"But we are not - we are on £26k. I am a Band Five nurse on the top of my banding and I am on £26k a year.

"I get £16.55 an hour before tax and that is after 42 years of nursing."

She says that nurses will go to work for supermarket chains where they can get paid as much or more with a fraction of the stress.

"I am seriously thinking about it myself because I should be retired by now but our retirement package is not good."

Both she and her colleague Claire Mackin, a Specialist Nurse in Tissue Viability, says that another key reason they are on the picket line is for their two daughters, who are both in their twenties and just starting out on their nursing careers.

Pamela adds: "Like all the other young nurses they are struggling. They have a caseload that is way beyond their capacity to cope with.

“I wouldn't want to be a young nurse starting their career - the pressure is horrendous."

Claire says that pay rates are so poor that many new nurses are quickly leaving front line caring roles for specialist nursing roles or management posts, for better pay.

Many young nurses are also going to work for agencies because the pay and hours are much better, she says.

However she says permanent new nurses are desperately needed for front line caring roles in wards.

Pamela adds that nurses at Lagan Valley now have to pay £4.50 a day for their own parking.

"Ninety per cent of us didn't get a permit to park in Lagan Valley where we parked for years and years."

"We now have to walk ten minutes to work every day - rain, hail, blow or snow. Or we choose to pay £4.50 a day to stay in the hospital car park where we are not supposed to park."