OPINION: I feel guilty already, but can I just take a second to talk about nurses.
I feel like we talk about them all the time on this show, and all the other shows too.
And most of it is warranted. Most of it is on merit.
But I found myself having a bit of nurse fatigue today when an email came into my inbox titled: 4200 Primary Health Care nurses to strike for pay parity.
Yep, another nurses' strike.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for people striking, and exercising their right to industrial action.
I'm all for nurses getting paid more.
But I'm at the point where I'm starting to feel my 'do I care-o-meter' dropping into the 'less and less' territory.
We work in news, so anything new is exciting to us. But this doesn't feel new anymore.
The problem is, I should care. I really should.
It's appalling that nurses in medical centres, after-hours emergency clinics, and at Plunket are worse paid than their counterparts employed by Health NZ Te Whatu Ora.
They should be paid more. So should aged-care nurses. And iwi-provider nurses.
But who are the ones affected by the strike? It's not the fat cat bosses in the health sector, it's everyday kiwis who need help.
It's kids, it's mothers, it's people with injuries that need urgent attention.
Maybe nurse strike fatigue is exactly what those bosses want. They want the public to get fatigued, and lessen the sympathy levels.
Which is why it's important we keep the pressure on.
But my goodness, how many more nurse strikes will it take for this government to listen?
That is the question.
