WATCH: 'We don’t want to be here but we’ve got to be here – if we don’t change things, safety for patients will be compromised'

Nurses at Bronglais Hospital say they have been ‘pushed to the edge’ as they join the biggest strike action the profession has ever seen in the UK.

Union representatives today told the Cambrian News the action has become unavoidable because of concerns for patient safety, 'chronic understaffing’ and falling pay.

Thousands of members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in Wales are on strike today and Tuesday (20 December).

The union - which hasn’t initiated strikes in more than a century - is demanding a pay rise 5 per cent above inflation. But is has openly admitted it would accept a lower offer.

The Welsh Government revealed its budget on Tuesday, where it said an extra £165million was being allocated to NHS Wales to help protect frontline services – but the RCN said no pay rise for nurses was a glaring absence.

The UK Government has suggested tens of thousands of operations and appointments have been cancelled due to the strikes though those on the picket line insist Bronglais Hospital has the same level of staffing as on a normal day.

RCN representative Anne Griffiths, aged 69, who has been nursing since she was 18 years old and has been at Bronglais since 1977, told the Cambrian News: “This has never happened before.

“Nurses have been pushed to the edge now but it’s mainly because of staffing numbers.

“The patients that are coming in are sicker, especially since Covid, and there are much more of them.

“Yes, everybody could do with more money. We’ve had real-terms pay cuts for years now.

“Nurses don’t earn the big bucks. We don’t get the big pensions. We’re usually woman, we usually have families to bring up and many work part-time.

“There are 400 vacancies across the health board at the moment, and that’s just nursing.

“We’re quite rural, more towards the coastline and harder to access so there are difficulties recruiting.

“And we’re the end of the train line so it doesn’t encourage people to come here.

“If you use even a proportion of the agency staff bill – not just the salary costs of the agency nurses but the costs paid to the companies as well – you could fund a pay rise for all staff and then we’d have more substantive levels.

“The agency staff situation here is no different to anywhere at the moment, you’re practically looking at 50 per cent.

“So, we see nurses on wards working for £10 to £15 an hour working next to an agency nurse earning £30 to £40 an hour.

“The crux of everything is all this - especially low staff numbers - has a detrimental effect on patient safety.”

Sue Morgan, who has worked as a nurse at Bronglais for 40 years, said: I found it very emotional coming to strike this morning – I just wanted to cry.

“After 40 years of nursing I never thought I’d be standing on a picket line.

“We don’t want to be here but we’ve got to be here – if we don’t change things safety for patients will be compromised.

“Our nurses can go and work at places like Amazon for more money – we've had people here go and work for the train service because they get more money!”

District nurse of 41 years, Yvonne Thomas, told the Cambrian News she is contracted to work a nine-and-a-half-hour day, four days per week, but she regularly starts at 7am and finishes at gone 9pm – and then she has paperwork to do when she gets home.

She said: “We haven’t had a proper pay rise for the last ten years. Our pay is down 20 per cent in real terms since then. I haven’t had a pay rise since I started!

“We’re having more and more patients needing support in the community – there's no support out there for people now so we have to pick up the slack.”

A regular patient who is ex-military and a double amputee stopped to drop off some bags of chocolates.

He said: “They’re just so helpful. I’ve had amputations and I’m currently in remission from lymphoma at the moment.

“I come up here once a week and they’re just great - they deserve a fair wage.”

A Hywel Dda health board spokesperson said: "We are working with the RCN leading up to the dates of strike action to ensure we can maintain patient safety with minimal disruption to critical services.

"Whilst all emergency services will be operating as normal, we need to adjust some elements of our planned care services and prioritise patients with urgent care needs wherever possible. There will be some changes to services on 15 and 20 December and will contact you if your planned appointment is impacted by the strike action.

"Our Chemotherapy Units will be operating as normal on strike days and some surgery for urgent cases will take place at our hospitals.

"Where appointments need to be re-scheduled, patients are being contacted by the relevant team to re-arrange their appointment as quickly as possible. In some cases, this may mean bringing appointments forward. Some face-to-face outpatient appointments will still go ahead, and some may be held as an online/virtual appointment."

If you are unsure, please contact the health board’s communication hub on 0300 3038322 (option 5 – other services) or email [email protected] for further information and guidance.