Up to 25,000 ambulance workers are on strike across England and Wales.
11 January 2023
Paramedics have described patients left on floors for hours and “horrendous” waits to hand people to A&E staff as they stood on picket lines in the latest dispute over pay.
Jenny Giblin, 38, a paramedic, braved the cold in Birkenhead, Wirral, with her 16-month-old son James Evans.
She told the PA news agency: “I’ve been a paramedic for seven years and it’s definitely got worse.
“We used to have to queue outside hospitals at certain times, like with winter pressures, but now it’s every day. Corridors are almost like wards.
“Sometimes you spend a whole shift on a corridor.
“It’s demoralising. I dread coming into work sometimes because I know what’s going to happen.”
Paramedic Dave McNeill, 55, outside Birkenhead community fire and ambulance station in Wirral, said: “Sometimes you can spend eight hours waiting on a hospital corridor with one patient.
“Crews end up taking two or three patients so other crews can get back on the road, and that’s not good, in my opinion, it’s not safe.
“Sometimes you can hear a category 1 call, which is the most life-threatening, coming in and you can’t go to it because you can’t leave the patient you’re with. It’s frustrating.
“It’s a really difficult situation because the hospitals don’t have the staff. After Covid, things never really got back on track.
“People don’t enjoy going on strike. It goes against the grain of what we do this job for.”
Lisa McCabe, another paramedic in Birkenhead, said she was on strike due to the working conditions.
“It’s not unusual to stand in corridors for 12 hours without getting a break,” she said.
“It really is heartbreaking, and also we’re getting to jobs three or four hours late.
“I had an old lady who had arrested when we got there because she waited up to three hours and couldn’t breathe.
“That really shook me to the core. I was angry rather than upset.
“Staff morale used to be really good and you used to see people smile outside A&E. That doesn’t happen now and we’re losing lots of really good paramedics.
“Going on strike is the last thing we want to do but I think our voice needs to be heard.”
Lisa McCabe, 43, a paramedic on the picket line in Birkenhead, said: “Since the pandemic we’re going to a lot of mental health jobs and jobs that needed a GP, but people can’t get hold of a doctor.
“You can spend two to three hours ringing doctors to get things in place.
“I tend to take a lot home with me. Last year I was assaulted on a job and off work for six months.
“I’ve never suffered with anxiety but I was really apprehensive and it took a lot of support to come back.
“In the pandemic I didn’t see my family for five months because I was frightened of even hugging them. It was a tough time.
“Now the Government just seem to have forgotten.”
Elsewhere, outside the Beechdale ambulance station in Nottingham, East Midlands Ambulance Service’s Nottinghamshire divisional HQ and training centre, half a dozen GMB union members were on the picket line first thing on Wednesday.
Vimal Mistry, a paramedic for seven years, said: “After the pandemic things have just got worse. People are queuing at hospitals, (queuing for) primary care.
“People can’t get appointments any more so they put off going to the doctor’s and when it gets worse they come to us.
“Staff see all this and just get run down.
“With interest rates and fuel costs going up, people just can’t afford the things they could do before.
“I’m now having to think about how much heating I have on in the house – I have it on for two hours now.”
He said waiting for hours to hand over patients to emergency departments is “horrendous” and it has become far worse over the last four weeks.
Another worker, who wished to remain anonymous, said she joined EMAS as a member of ambulance support crew eight months ago, having previously worked in the control room.
She described the struggle to get to patients caused by handover delays.
She said: “From when I came in, it’s been so busy. The norm is for ambulances to wait for hours. It’s not common to be on stand-by, or waiting for a job allocation. It’s always been hard.
“It’s not pleasant getting to a job that’s possibly 24 hours old. It’s just really disheartening – going to a patient who has possibly been on the floor for 12 hours is just so disheartening.”
She added: “It’s really hard. I bought a house at the start of last year when electricity and gas didn’t cost what it does now.
“I took that into my budget and I could afford it, whereas now I am having to think about when I’m putting the heating on, what food I’m buying.”
She said she is currently “getting by” but this could soon become unsustainable and that, while she does not want to leave her job, she could be forced to if things do not improve.
Craig Thomson, a regional organiser for the GMB union, said: “We need the Government to really step up their support and acknowledge workloads.
“Some members are reporting 12, 13, 14, 15-hour shifts. We’ve been stressing the need for minimum levels of staffing and support for years.”
He added: “What we are saying to the Government is stop with the antics of anti-strike legislation, come to the table, negotiate with us and give our workers what they deserve.”
