Boomtown Assembly is open

We asked our citizens if they had taken part in the most recent nationwide industrial action and to share some words on their experiences. One of our citizens wrote to us with their personal account of what it has been like to be in one of the affected industries. 

"I’m a paramedic, and I work for the ambulance service in one of Britain’s largest and busiest cities. I love my job, I get to experience moments that are peoples worst and help to make it better. Within our job I am a medic, a social worker, a carer, a physiotherapist, a counsellor, a mental health worker, someone who makes tea, a teacher, a parent, a friend. 

It is exhausting. 

It is worth it. 

Over the last six years that I have been a paramedic I have seen it grow and change. When I was training people would barely even wait in corridors, that drastically changed and I began to see patient care suffer. Still, we carried on. We kept going to patients, kept treating to the best of our abilities. At that point, patients weren’t waiting long for us and it felt like at least we could offer fast and efficient help even if they had to wait in A&E for 10 hours. 

It got worse. 

I could see nurses at their absolute breaking point, everyone was tired and had no empathy left. 

Then Covid happened, for a little while people didn’t go to A&E as much for smaller things and it was almost like A&E and the ambulance service took a collective breath. 

Then it got worse. More people dying, younger people dying, doctors and nurses having to choose which patient was most likely to survive, meaning which one got a bed. 

As restrictions lifted it got busier, people got sicker and the pressure on everything built. 

I remember last April responding to a call at the end of my night shift it was an 89 year old man who had fallen in the bathroom and was bleeding. He had been waiting for 14 hours. I got diverted and ended up somewhere else, then finished an hour late, I never got to him. I don’t know how long he ended up waiting, I went home and thought about him instead of sleeping. What's worse is that wasn’t abnormal.

I was leaving work and feeling guilty for not staying knowing when I came in the next day there would be people waiting who had called when I had been on shift the day before. 

I felt so much guilt. 

It was not my guilt to feel. 

The first thing I have been saying to people as I walk through the door is I am sorry. I am apologising to people because of what this government is doing. 

For a government I didn’t vote for. 

For a prime minister no one voted for. 

Last week I went to a 65 year old man who had been kicked out of his flat because his landlord upped the rent and he couldn’t afford it. He had been made homeless, wandering around the city centre with his suitcase, no sleeping equipment, not knowing how to stay safe and warm. He had literally made himself medically unwell from being out in the cold and could no longer stand.

The thing is this isn’t just about the patients who are suffering because of this government. This is about us as a service, as healthcare professionals, as people. Last year my Hub realised some members of staff couldn’t afford food and created a food bank on station so that people could have lunches without judgement, so they could do a 12 hour shift with something to eat. 

We are doing 12 hour shifts, most of the time finishing late, seeing traumatic events, holding the hands of dying people, doing our job with compassion and then going home and not turning the heating on because we can’t afford it. 

There are Tory donors and businesses out there making billions and all we got was PTSD and a badge saying thanks.

I’m seeing and experiencing first hand the impact that the lack of services and funding is having on the general public. In 2019 I was off work with stress and depression, my GP referred me for therapy, I was on the waiting list for two and a half years before I saw anyone. 

I want my job to go back to actually caring for patients, treating people and getting to occasionally save a life. I can see that isn’t going to happen until we get appropriate funding within the NHS and fair pay. 

I stand as an NHS worker in solidarity with every single person out there who is striking.

I stand with every single person who three years ago was being applauded for working through COVID but now is being called selfish vile scum, expected to just get on with it be thankful to have a job. 

I stand with every single person in this country who has been affected by waiting times from NHS and ambulance service, the people who have died waiting for an ambulance, the stroke patients who didn’t get thrombolysed in time, the people who had to watch their loved ones dying and in pain. 

I think the only way there will ever be a change, the only way they will listen is by standing together and saying enough is enough. 

United we are powerful."

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