Immoral for nurses to only receive a fraction of the pay of celebrities - Yorkshire Post Letters

I was deeply moved by MR Birchall’s letter in The YP, November 12, praising the care received by NHS staff at two Yorkshire hospitals and I too have reason to be grateful to the NHS surgeons and nursing staff at LGI who have saved my life on numerous occasions, namely enabling me to survive to the old age of 80 despite four operations for breast cancer and two for a brain tumour.

It seems incredible to me that funds can always be found by government for material ego-boosting projects like the channel tunnel and HS2 but not for the dedicated staff on all levels of the NHS and while I am saddened at the decision to take strike action, especially when my Mother, being a nurse, would have been appalled at the idea, I can fully understand the reasons.

Of course my Mother was a nurse in the days of one formidable matron who even the consultants were wary of, nursing sisters, staff-nurses and SEN’s. The nursing staff weren’t expected to take on the duties of doctors but were expected to cosset and care for each individual patient and were able to spend quality time with them. I also speak of a time when nurses were called either by their nick-names or just ’nurse’ and patients were called by their titles and surnames, so you can tell how far back I’m going! As far as I’m aware there were nowt broke, so why fix it?

It is a crazy world indeed when sports people and so-called celebrities are paid millions of pounds per week, yet top NHS staff who save the lives of people on a daily basis, receive a fraction of those sums - it’s simply immoral.