Ulrika Jonsson has hit back at Luisa Zissman for branding the nurses strike this month “irresponsible and cruel” calling her “heartless and ignorant beyond reproach”.
She addressed Luisa’s comments in her column for The Sun.
In a foul-mouthed rant, Luisa, who starred on The Apprentice and is now a millionaire, described the NHS staff that are set to go on strike as “jumped up t***s". She also said that if they were concerned about their wage packet, they never should have entered the medical profession.
She went on to argue that if NHS staff “aren’t happy with the pay the job offers, do a different f***ing one”.
Many people in the UK face having to choose between heating or eating this winter. With freezing temperatures and Christmas looming, many have argued that NHS staff, who face crippling pressures on a daily basis at work, are right to go on strike. The proposed strikes come in response to a pay rise offer that is worth as little as 4%, despite soaring inflation.
In response to Luisa’s comments, Ulrika reminded her the sacrifice that nursing staff make. She said: “What is cruel, Zissman, is that the very people — those treasured nurses who kept us alive during the pandemic and were forced to witness many die — are paid so little for a job that demands so much.”
Ulrika also said that Luisa had only attacked nurses, despite postal workers, rail services and other civil servants all downing tools, and that she lacks business sense in terms of understanding how the NHS operates.
She continued: "As a businesswoman and entrepreneur she claims that if they would all stop doing their jobs then salaries would organically go up because there would have to be a massive recruitment drive.
“I may not be a businesswoman but I know enough about the NHS to know that it isn’t a business like any other. It’s a broken system where retainment and recruitment has been an issue for some time and nurses leaving their profession hasn’t hitherto increased pay, has it?”
Ulrika also said Luisa was taking aim at the wrong people, with problems in the NHS coming from those at the top who earn six-figure salaries, with those at the frontline paying the price.
She also agreed with Luisa’s claims that she wouldn’t be able to do the job of a nurse, due to lacking the qualities of responsibility, protection, nurturing and selflessness, saying: “thank the Lord, there will never be a Nurse Zissman.”
