The thing I don't understand - allegedly coservative government is capitalist to the core. So they can't hire enough nurses. Are they going to increase pay to hire more nurses? No. Capitalism for me but not for thee.
Every time I've seen medical strikes, workers organize emergency crews who stay behind to avoid exactly that. People choose medical professions to help others, and especially nurses typically do so despite the working conditions.
This mentality is what's being exploited. And nurses are getting fed up.
They want to help people. But so much of the decision making is taking that away from them. Even the simple shit like bathing patients is being rushed or removed from them because they're too busy. Simple things like brushing a person's hair helps humanize them. At a certain point they're so overworked with terrible ratios that they can see all the inevitable near miss scenarios that have almost caused harm to patients or themselves/coworkers and without any support from the system to correct these issues they're giving up.
Again, they want to help, but they also can't repeatedly stand back and watch the train wreck in action. Many of them are saving themselves and exiting the profession because the mental and emotional toll they pay each shift is becoming too much.
My wife is an ICU nurse. Most of what I've said here comes from her, or her colleagues who I talk with.
There was a BBC article about this recently, titled "The workers leaving their dream jobs"[1]:
"....workers have always hoped for roles that coincide with their interests and passions ... Yet this 'do what you love' narrative comes with drawbacks. Many people find that their dream jobs require more work, under worse conditions. Others discover that the industries they idolise trade on workers' passions to keep pay low..."
[1] - https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20221010-the-workers-le...
I know it's probably a variation of "there's no money", but, I would imagine nurse care to be something important for everyone.
I know I am being naive as I live in a country where the gov ia about to make significant cuts to health spending... but I always thought "first world" countries such as the UK would make saner choices in areas like this one.
I believe there is no such consensus in UK, you are just trying to rationalise incompetent governance and ideology.
Last prime minister's best thoughts on Brexit was a 10 minute rant about cheese. Wether honest or corrupt, good or evil, how does a person of such modest ability come to top office? Trully the land of opportunity!
This is one of those things that I find schizophrenic about capitalism: the more you like your job, the less valuable (monetarily) your work becomes. Because, you know, you're being compensated in that warm fuzzy feeling when you do your work.
Except that this is insane! I can see the logic of the system ending up with that reasoning, but if that's the outcome then that system is stupid.
And also, turns out that fuzzy feelings don't feed a family.
And the fuzzy feeling crucially comes mostly when people are able to do their job well, not rushing it because the allocated minute to do it is running out.
Like the UK and Europe pay absolute peanuts in comparison, just like in Tech, Law, etc. too.
when I moved from a tech job in the UK to a tech job in the US, my salary more than doubled
And I'd still take it over the US.
But then, what can you expect from people indoctrinated from early childhood by, among many other things, being coerced to pledge to the flag every day like it's North Korea.
You see a midwife to give birth, not a nurse. I believe they’re also striking, but they’re not nurses and it’s an entirely different strike.
She spent a lot of that time working with poor Amish communities, not the well-off people you probably imagine hire midwives in the US.
I looked for some studies, but everything I found was based on poorly designed experiments and aren't worth linking to.
(e.g., excluding all complications after the fact shows similar fetal outcomes, but more cesarians for hospital births; failing to exclude non-credentialed midwives shows more fetal deaths for home birth. Duh?).
[0] I admit there is perhaps some bias here
Looking at C-section rates:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/283123/cesarean-sections...
If I were a woman I'd probably rather live in some of those low C-section countries than the high ones. But this is "policy analysis by general country vibes," probably not very accurate, haha.
So the US government of 1920's was socialist, is that why they ordered the military to carpet bomb striking miners?
> Going on strike could—and often did—mean being beaten by strikebreakers, being shot at by National Guardsmen, or even having bombs dropped on you from biplanes.
https://listverse.com/2017/09/14/10-tragic-times-the-us-gove...
The word socialist has meaning, it doesn't mean 'bad guys'. It means siding with workers in their dispute with capital.
There can be times when it's the wrong this to do, but claiming that strike-breaking is socialist is like claiming that French Revolution was monarchist
UK has public healthcare. The primary mechanism how public healthcare keeps costs low is to use its monopsonistic market power to keep prices (including wages) as low as possible.
Nope. See the OP.
Regardless of whether you think the nurses deserve the pay raise, I have a hard time understanding why you’d think that squeezing suppliers isn’t part of capitalism. For instance, I doubt people would call Apple anti capitalist for refusing to accept TSMC’s price hikes.
I have a hard time understanding why healthcare should be capitalistic and have a capitalist class who profit from simply owning healthcare facilities.
Same with bailouts.
"Oh, you don't have enough money to survive 6 to 12 months without income / did something dumb... wow, that really sucks. Well... bye."