Healthcare professionals in Northern Ireland strike in bid to secure pay parity with counterparts

Healthcare workers in Northern Ireland said "enough is enough," as thousands took to picket lines across Northern Ireland over pay disparity and health service funding.

Workers from a number of unions including Unison, Unite and Nipsa, as well as the Society of Radiographers, joined picket lines outside hospitals across Northern Ireland for the first of two day of action.

The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) also joined industrial action on Thursday morning, with the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) announcing its intention to strike on Friday.

Workers want pay parity with their counterparts in the rest of the UK following assurances they wouldn't be left behind.

Thursday morning marked the start of one of the biggest healthcare worker walkouts ever in Northern Ireland.

Caitlin Austin from the Society of Radiographers told UTV: "Nobody has taken this decision lightly to come out today. Nobody will take the decision to come out tomorrow lightly either.

"For as long as we have to keep coming out, we will keep coming out. We go to work everyday to do our jobs, it's time the politicians, who hat we elect, go to do their jobs."

It's the fifth strike action to be taken by the sector since December.

Radiographers joined the picket line over staffing concerns as Heidi Bodenham explained.

"Strike is the last option for us," she said.

"There are 188,000 waiting for diagnostic testing but obviously waiting lists are getting longer and longer as we don't have the staff."

The 48 hour action is causing large-scale disruption to services.

Non-emergency surgeries and appointments have been cancelled, meanwhile the ambulance service has been struggling to respond to non-life threatening calls.

"Our control room has been very busy ad under quite significant pressure at the moment so looking forward to when it finishes after midnight on Friday night, we will have a significant number of calls that will be stacking or waiting for us to respond to beyond that time."

"Staff do not want to take this action but they feel they're left with no option.

"It puts significant pressure on them and non of them want to stand by while there are calls waiting to be responded too."

Care Worker Josie Simpson told UTV: "We work hard and we are getting nowhere with pay rises. The cost of living is so dear, everything is expensive, the petrol to get to work and back, we feel like we need to make a stand.

"Everybody is out, we're all here together to see if we can get this solved once and for all."

Meanwhile secretary of Unison's Causeway branch Kim Hall said: "The staff have had enough, enough is enough - everybody else has got their pay rise - England, Scotland and Wales.

"In Northern Ireland once again we're left behind, the workers are in there and they give 110% to the trust and we are getting nothing back."

Brenda Stevenson regional officer for Unite the Union echoed those sentiments.

"Our NHS is the beating heart of our public services and they're being treated as if they don't matter any more, they don't matter to government.

"Government need to stop, take a long, hard look at what they're doing and put pay parity in here and they also need to look at the pay structures across the board."

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