British nurses are again on strike for two days from Wednesday January 18, an unprecedented movement to demand better wages, in a United Kingdom faced with high inflation.
These new days of mobilization testify to the deadlock in the negotiations between the main union of nurses, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the conservative government of Rishi Sunak, which refuses the increases that the RCN demands.
This deadlock prompted the union to announce on Monday two new days of strikes in February which will concern more hospitals.
"We are doing this in a desperate attempt to see
(the Prime Minister)
and ministers save the NHS"
, the public health system, justified the general secretary of the RCN Pat Cullen on Monday, calling on the government to
"solve"
the problem of tens of thousands of vacancies in hospitals.
The government, which wants to pass a law establishing a minimum service in certain sectors, denounces the disturbances that these strikes will cause for the population in the middle of winter.
“It is inevitable that a strike will have an impact on patients
,” Health Minister Steve Barclay said on Tuesday, adding that the two-day walkout for nurses in December led to the cancellation of 30,000 operations and appointments. .
According to the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals, this new strike could lead to the cancellation of 4,500 operations and 25,000 appointments.
Read alsoSocial discontent swells in the United Kingdom in the face of inflation
Its chairman, Matthew Taylor, called on the government to
"do everything it can to end this damaging conflict"
for the NHS.
"We don't think this is the right way to act, we continue to call on the unions to leave the picket lines and continue the discussions
," said a spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, also referring to the upcoming teachers' strike from February 1, to which will be added a new walkout by railway workers.
The nurses' movement is the most popular of all those that have shaken the United Kingdom in recent months, facing its worst social crisis in decades, due to inflation at more than 10%.
According to a poll published on Wednesday by Ipsos for the PA agency, 57% of Britons believe that the government is most to blame for the length of the nurses' strike.
82% of respondents feel sympathy for nurses and 80% for paramedics, another health profession on strike in recent weeks.
90% also express their sympathy for the patients, whose strikes are disrupting care a little more, in a public health system (NHS) already damaged by years of underfunding and the Covid-19 pandemic.