NHS worker who lives on bread and soup three nights a week calls for pay rise in line with inflation
An NHS worker says he is having to eat soup and bread three nights a week because he can not afford to do a proper food shop anymore.
Peter MacCabe has been working for the NHS for over six years and currently works as a housekeeper within a hospital.
Although he loves his work, he says it is getting "very difficult" to do the job on the wage he is currently on and says he has had to tighten his belt.
He said: "I've stopped going out, I don't drink very much these days. I virtually never socialise and I'm literally living on bread and soup for three days a week.
"Inflation is almost at 10% and petrol prices are through the roof at the moment."
Peter added: "One lady I was speaking to had to cancel her holiday because she can't afford the petrol prices of getting there and back. She has two young children and had to disappoint them with that news earlier."
The NHS worker said the situation is so bad that colleagues are having to take on a second job.
"Strike is very much a last resort", he said.
"We desperately care about the NHS, we desperately care about the patients. We wouldn't want to compromise anybody's safety or anybody's health, but we are absolutely at our wit's end. I don't know where we're going to go.
"We're having to take on secondary jobs, night shifts and alike just to survive.
"I'm having to look at these options myself."
He believes things need to change and that NHS workers deserve a pay rise that is in line with inflation.
"There needs to be a different focus on the way the public sector is viewed", he said.
"We're not asking for huge inflation busting pay rises, we just need a pay deal that keeps us in line with inflation.
"That's all that we need."
It comes as the Welsh Government announced a £1,400 pay rise for most NHS Wales staff.
Health Minister Eluned Morgan said the increase will come on top of a commitment to implement a Real Living Wage for all NHS Wales staff, meaning those on the lowest pay - in bands 1 to 4 - will receive a rise of around 7.5%. The starting salary for the lowest paid NHS workers will also increase to £20,758.
For NHS Wales staff in bands 6 and 7, the £1,400 raise will equate to an increase of around 4%. It means most nurses in Wales, who start at band 5, will see a rise of between 4 and 5.5%.
While junior doctors, consultants, GPs and dentists will receive an increase of 4.5%.
But unions have expressed "outrage" that the pay award is below inflation, which in the UK currently stands at 9.4% - its highest rate in four decades.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Wales branded the increase "insulting". Helen Whyley, Director of RCN Wales, said: “Nurses will be outraged to hear the pay award is well below inflation yet again. This will do nothing to fill over 1,719 vacancies for registered nurses in NHS Wales.
"It won’t encourage nurses to stay in nursing and it won’t inspire future generations to join them.”
The British Medical Association (BMA) described the pay award as "shameful" and a "kick in the teeth".
Dr David Bailey, BMA Cymru Council Chair said: "This is a raw and divisive deal for SAS doctors, whereby some will receive a 4.5% uplift, and some will not.
“This award amounts to nothing more than a pay cut, and it comes at a time when doctors have endured years of below inflation pay rises and are being driven out of the NHS due to perverse, punitive pension rules.
“The timing of this pay cut could not be worse. Doctors have gone above and beyond throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to care for patients, putting themselves and their families’ lives at risk in the process."