A struggling nurse has told how she has to work extra shifts to afford petrol to get her to work after paying other bills.
Community mental health specialist Jennifer Fox, 32, takes on additional work to help pay bills and provide for her children. Speaking after members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) voted to reject the Scottish Government’s pay offer, she said: “I have to work extra shifts on wards at weekends to pay for petrol to get to work and to help with bills.
"It is exhausting. The cost-of-living crisis has really hit.”
Jennifer has three children – a daughter of 14 and sons aged five and two. Her daughter looks after herself when school ends but the older of the two boys goes to a breakfast club every morning so that Jennifer can get to work in time, and also attends an after-school club two days a week.
He is unable to go to the club more as Jennifer can’t afford to send him. She also can’t afford to send her youngest child to nursery.
Instead, she relies on the goodwill of her mum, her partner’s dad and other family members to share the burden of childcare. Jennifer said: “My mum was a nurse but she’d had enough so retired just as I had my wee one.”
The caring nurse, who lives in Dundee, has also had to abandon her work pension scheme as she can no longer afford contributions from her monthly pay. She said: “I’ve had to come out of my pension just to be able to live.
“Not paying my pension and taking extra shifts means I can just about make it from pay cheque to pay cheque. I got paid yesterday but have had £3 to live on for the past four days.”
Jennifer added: “I am a degree-educated professional but I’m genuinely considering if it is worth all the responsibility and the mental stress to continue to be a nurse.”
She works in Perth from Monday to Friday but takes extra shifts on mental health wards at weekends to keep the family’s head above water. Her partner works as a mechanic but they need the extra income to pay for the essentials of family life.
Jennifer said: “It is really difficult and everyone is struggling. The increase in mental health cases we are seeing is astronomical.
“I work in a first contact team within health and social care, and every day we are getting contacted by new cases of people having mental health breakdowns because they cannot afford their bills and food. There so many more cases now than there were last year.”
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Yesterday, the Record told how Scotland’s nurses will go on strike in the New Year after overwhelmingly rejecting the Scottish Government’s latest pay offer. A ballot of RCN members resulted in 82 per cent saying no to a pay increase of between £2205 and £2660.
Their nursing colleagues in the Royal College of Midwives also rejected the deal. Jennifer, who is a member of the RCN, voted against accepting the Scottish Government’s latest offer.
She said: “We should all be treated equally in the NHS but the lower bands were being offered an 11 per cent pay rise while my band was to be offered just seven per cent. It is ridiculous – we are all of equal value.”
She is also critical of the amount spent on agency nurses – about £92million in the last year. Jennifer added: “I do bank shifts as hospitals are so short-staffed but we have different terms in our contracts than agency staff. An agency nurse can be earning three times what I earn on a shift but I have more responsibility.
“I know a lot of nurses who have left the NHS to go to work for an agency. Who can blame them going where they get paid so much more?
“Some have even left and go back to work on the exact same ward. They know they are guaranteed the work because there are such staff shortages but now they get more money for doing the exact same job.
“It is shocking. I’ve spoken to newly qualified nurses who tell me they are going to do their first year in the NHS and then go to an agency.
“If the Scottish Government put that £92million in to the NHS nurses’ pay fund it would encourage the retention and recruitment of nurses.”
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