Should nurses strike?

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Do you think nurses should strike?

With public perception of nursing low due to scandals such as Stafford and others people believe that nursing care and nursing is poor or recruiting the wrong people.

However a large number of the problems stem from under staffing. On top of the under staffing is the poor pay or no pay rise.

So should nurses strike for for mandatory minimum staffing? What do you think? mandatory minimum staffing/ good staffing was recommended in the francies report. So what do you think?

It has worked in Australia

STRIKE for mandatory minimums | 4:1 Campaign

Thanks

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Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

One of the first things Florence Nightingale when she arrived in Scutari was to stage a strike.

I would never strike for something trivia ... but for something big and important? Yes, I would -- giving proper notice of the planned strike so that the employer could prepare and no patients would be hurt.

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Specializes in GI & Liver medicine, Intensive Care..

Hmmmm

Striking is such a difficult question for nurses.

Do I think we should strike for something really important..... yes

would i ever do it ...... No. Like all nurses my patients come first and i can not in anyway endanger them. I know this is used against us by the powers that be as it effectively wipes out our negotion muscle but i will never endanger my patients.

Some would say strike if safety is maintened. However for a nursing strike to be effective we would all have to walk out. Previous small strikes by nursing staff have involved some nurses striking while others maintained safe enviorments for our patients. The results were 0 change in our favour.

We are effectively stuck in the ultimate catch 22. We dont all strike and nothing will get done, we do all strike, people die and we have no public support and we loose all moral high ground.

We are especially unlucky here in the UK as we are no longer well thought of. Sustained media campaigns targetting us for daring to further our nursing education (too posh to wash) and numerous public reports have resulted in a poor opinion of nurses so we dont enjoy public support compared to our counterparts in other countries such as the US.

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Yes we should strike

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