It’s fair to say, most people believe nurses should be paid more for their job, which consists of challenging work and long hours.
Now, one nurse has gone viral after sharing her pay slip on Twitter, revealing just how much she earns.
Irish nurse, Joanna Hickey, posted an image on Twitter, showing what a ‘near top of the scale’ nurse makes in 14 days.
The payslip in the tweet shows her net pay for a fortnight was €1,120.80 (£1,000.24 – at the time of writing), which led to many across the social media platform brand the amount ‘shocking’ and a ‘far cry from the wild salaries we hear about’.
She also explained in the tweet:
And if I work weekends and nights away from my child & partner I might make an extra €100 (£89.24).
In a series of tweets which followed, Joanna went on to say:
I take 3 hours parental leave a week as working “39” hours (more like 45hrs/wk with hand over & patient complexity) was proving too much as a mother.
I now do “36” hrs a week… I start at 07:45am and usually get out at 20:45pm. So no personal time off for free…
Joanna’s tweets have come at a time, when the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) are in dispute with the government in the Republic of Ireland over salaries.
It’s thought, the INMO strike planned for the end of this month, will see 40,000 nurses and midwives go on strike for 24 hours on Wednesday, 30 January.
Joanna went on to explain the problems she, and many others within her line of work, are currently facing, tweeting:
That pay has now changed to a ‘merged scale’ but is still less then pre 2008 scale. In the mean time they increased all nurses hours from 37.5hr/pw to 39hr/pw without extra payment to help cover understaffing issues. [sic]
You can read all of Joanna’s tweets here, which go into further detail about working conditions, pay, and responsibilities.
A statement provided by the union said only emergency response and lifesaving care will be provided on the day, and if the dispute persists unresolved, they will strike again on February 5, 7, 12, 13 and 14.
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