Striking Northern Ireland health workers in their own words: 'There's not enough pay and we're losing staff all the time'

Members of several trade unions braved the icy conditions across Northern Ireland in the strike in the health service since the winter of 2019/20 in what is set to be a protracted dispute over pay and working terms.

Speaking to the News Letter at Altnagelvin Hospital in Londonderry, medical staff described how their pay can no longer keep up with the soaring cost-of-living and how workers are leaving the health service in droves in pursuit of better pay.

Bridgeen Canning, a specialist kidney nurse who was on the picket line with collagues in the Unison trade union, said: “We’re on strike for better pay and better working conditions. We are seeing bank staff, or agency staff, getting bigger and better wages which just isn’t fair and it’s affecting patient care. There’s not enough staff.

“The pay is important. There’s nothing left at the end of our wages, nothing. What goes in just comes out. I have a son, my eldest, is a mechanic. He is only one year qualified and he’s bringing home more than I am, and I have been doing this for 25 years.

“We are losing staff all the time to Letterkenny [University Hospital, across the border in Co Donegal].”

Patrick McGilloway, a team leader at the North West Cancer Centre who oversees the work of cleaners and other support staff, is also a member of Unison.

He said: “I’m on strike to try and get better pay and more importantly, to try and get more staff. We don’t have enough staff to run the wards. We’re seeing difficulties with staffing levels daily. The whole system is running on the good will of the workers, who are burning themselves out.

“We are seeing people leaving all the time and it is related to pay. They’re getting more in Tesco’s or wherever else. People who worked all through covid are just getting a kick up the teeth.”

Aine Kelly, a nursing auxiliary in the stroke unit at Altnagelvin, said: “We’re on strike because of the conditions we’re working in for very little money. There’s not enough staff and they’re expecting more than what anyone is capable of doing in a 12 hour shift.

“Secondly, the cost-of-living at the minute means we need a pay rise, we need fair pay.

“In the last six months, we have basically an all new staff in our work and they are even talking about leaving now as well after they get their six months in, because they can get paid far more doing something else.”

Robert Walker, who recently retired but turned up to the picket line to support his colleagues, said: “I was an auxiliary and I worked 18 years in the health service. I worked in the stroke ward. I should have retired in June-coming but I left early because I was burnt out. There were 19 staff who left in the space of a year and there were only three who came in. That’s just since Christmas last year – and that’s more than half the staff on that ward.”