A striking ambulance worker has warned that “morale is rock bottom” in the service, saying he knows of at least three colleagues who have taken their own lives in the last year.
Dad of three Shaun Sproule, 43, has previously taken time off from his role with North West Ambulance Service due to stress, and now volunteers to support colleagues with anxiety and depression as a result of the job. His day job is managing community defibrillators and first responder volunteers across Cumbria and Lancashire, but he has to do overtime as an ambulance technician on the roads, just to “make ends meet”, reports the Mirror.
His story comes as some 20,000 ambulance workers strike today across England and Wales. A second wave of historic strikes see paramedics, call-handlers, technicians and other North West Ambulance Service staff walking out in a row over pay.
