A nurse who works in a hospital in Northern Ireland has claimed that workers in the profession are having to turn to foodbanks over fears of how they are going to put food on the table for themselves and their families.
It comes after the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) urged its 300,000 members across the UK to vote in favour of strike action.
If voted for, it will be the first time in the RCN's 106-year history that UK-wide industrial action will take place. The results are due next month.
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The ballot is in protest of NHS pay. A "below inflation" NHS pay award has been announced in England, Scotland, and Wales. It's understood the offer would have seen nurses get a salary increase of at least £1,400.
However, a pay increase announcement for HSC staff still hasn't been announced in Northern Ireland, meaning members here are worse off compared to their colleagues in other parts of the UK, according to RCN.
The trade union is campaigning for a "once in a generation" rise of 5% above inflation – which is currently 10.1%.
Meanwhile, one nurse who has worked at Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry for over a decade told MyDerry that morale among his colleagues was "at an all-time low."
"The stories that you hear on a daily basis are absolutely heartbreaking," Andrew Doherty said. "We are hearing of nurses who are having to turn to foodbanks to get food at the end of the month for their families, and others who are enquiring about hardship funding.
"These are people who are coming into work for a 12-hour shift, people who are saving lives and doing their best for those in need of the care that they required.
"I've never known it to be this bad and when I speak with other nurses, they tell me the same. We've never seen it this stretched, short, and in crisis.
"It's demoralising because as nurses we want to go into our work and give the best that we can.
"Nobody gets into nursing to be a millionaire. but there comes a time when enough and enough and we've known for a long time that we've been extremely underpaid.
He continued: "A lot of nurses stuck with it through the Covid-19 pandemic and gave as much back to the community, but we're starting to see people leave in unpredicted numbers.
"Others are working their contracted hours within the Western Trust and then having to go to other areas on their days off and work again, just to make ends meet.
"That then leads to other implications because this is a safety-critical profession and nurses need to come into their work at 100% and sometimes that isn't the case because they're being left exhausted.
"We haven't had a pay rise in years and the pay for nurses has declined at twice the rate of the private sector in the last decade.
"When you look at it, nurses' pay has declined by 6pc over the years and when you combine that with the cost of living, it's untenable.
"And we can't continue to stand by as warnings fall on deaf ears. We are doing this as much for our patients as anybody else because the treatment that they're receiving is not acceptable and it's not going to get any better without some kind of action.
"I am having to look and my own circumstances and so is my wife. She is a nursing assistant and we're really struggling. It's getting more and more difficult to be a nurse and provide the care that we want to provide.
"We don't want to leave the profession, this is something that we love but there comes a point when you have to look at it and start doing what's right to protect your own family.
"That often comes into conflict with the fact that the NHS is already on its knees, and how can you leave patients who are already struggling?
"These are the things that cross every nurse's mind at one point or another. It's not sustainable any longer and enough is enough."
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