{"id":19704,"date":"2019-12-18T15:00:16","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T15:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=19704"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:54:49","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:54:49","slug":"northern-ireland-nhs-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=19704","title":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland NHS strike"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Unite health members in Northern Ireland joined thousands of other NHS workers on picket lines across the region today (18 December) in a dispute over pay and patient safety.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In one of the biggest health service strikes ever seen, around 15,000 nurses and health care staff, including 4,000 Unite members, went on strike for 12 hours, following weeks of industrial action over the same issue.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Crowfs out in support of NHS picketers at the Mater Hospital, Belfast <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SaveOurNHS?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#SaveOurNHS<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/EqualPay?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#EqualPay<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SafeStaffing?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#SafeStaffing<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/i0wKB7pA6j\">pic.twitter.com\/i0wKB7pA6j<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Unite the Union NI (@UniteunionNI) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/UniteunionNI\/status\/1207223673863716864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 18, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unite lead officer for health in Northern Ireland, Kevin McAdam, said NHS staff in Northern Ireland are getting a raw deal compared to the rest of the UK.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For example, in Northern Ireland a newly registered nurse earns \u00c2\u01411,419 less than a nurse performing the same role in England or Wales and \u00c2\u01411,875 less than in Scotland and for some specialist nurses the pay disparity can reach as much as \u00c2\u01414,677.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bNorthern Ireland NHS workers are the poorest paid in the UK \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a fact that has resulted in a chronic staffing crisis rooted in a failure to recruit or retain staff and the abject failure to bring forward workforce development,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 McAdam said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe consequences of this policy has been to raise dependency on locums and private sector staff agencies \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which represents another scandalous waste of NHS funding that should be going towards frontline provision.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unite regional secretary Jackie Pollock joined striking health care workers on the picket line outside Mater Hospital in Belfast.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Unite regional secretary Jackie Pollock speaks from the picket line outside the Mater hospital Belfast <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SafeStaffing?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#SafeStaffing<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SaveOurNHS?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#SaveOurNHS<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/EqualPay?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#EqualPay<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/pvEGY8aREK\">pic.twitter.com\/pvEGY8aREK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Unite the Union NI (@UniteunionNI) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/UniteunionNI\/status\/1207233913351000065?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 18, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bAfter months and years off negotiations with all the unions inside the health service in Northern Ireland, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made no progress. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re still lagging behind the UK in regards to pay and staffing levels.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unfortunate that we have to take this action but we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had great support the public.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unite member and pharmacist Erika Hughes was one of those on strike today in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>She tweeted, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bPharmacy staff stand shoulder to shoulder with nursing and other colleagues to fight for safer services &amp; pay parity in Northern Ireland.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Despite the cold and rain plenty of cheer for our our NHS <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/saveournhsni?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#saveournhsni<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GHPPharmacy?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@GHPPharmacy<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rosiedonnelly8?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@rosiedonnelly8<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unitetheunion?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@unitetheunion<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/00E9Qpnnuk\">pic.twitter.com\/00E9Qpnnuk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Erika Hughes (@erikahughes111) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/erikahughes111\/status\/1207303627066527745?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 18, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Pic by Erika Hughes<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unite health members in Northern Ireland joined thousands of other NHS workers on picket lines across the region today (18 December) in a dispute over pay and patient safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19708,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[29,219],"wps_subtitle":"Thousands picket over low pay and patient safety","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19704"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19704"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24803,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19704\/revisions\/24803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}