She is a paediatric nurse in London. She has to pay several hundred pounds a year from her meagre wages to remain on the state register. She works long and gruelling hours with sick and dying children. She often has to break the news to distraught parents that their child is no more. She sometimes gets wrongly blamed for the death of a child and has to have special insurance incase she is sued for professional negligence.
She has to pay London prices for a half-decent place to live and has to share a flat with 2 others. It would take up all of her wages if she did not. She has to deal with the incompetent sharks who make their money - lots of it - by being the link between the landlord and the tenant. She was charged £300 for handing back the keys to her previous flat. She payed to travel to their office and simply put the keys on the desk in front of them. That will be £300 please.
We don't treat people like her very well, do we?
The parasitical nature of society means we all live off each other. London prices are the worst example. My recent experience of hospital tells me that there are far better people such as nurses that keep our world running. We should cherish them not rip them off...
ReplyDeleteThe worst of the lot are the ones who make millions from things we cannot do without to live. Food, housing, medicines, transport - all run for the benefit of the shareholders and directors. If that sounds like Socialism I couldn't give a toss.
DeleteI think its about time there was a ceiling placed on rental and property prices.
ReplyDeleteIn Europe, the only way to make a living from rented housing is to become a professional landlord and own at least 5 buildings. Rents in Germany are very reasonable. Here - since Margaret Thatcher blessed the 'wealth creators' - anyone with a spare house can make a very good living from people with a lot of expendable income. There will never be a cap which isn't set by market forces.
DeleteIt is the same here, unfortunately.
DeleteNot good at all and things should be different. She is doing a wonderful job and thank God for people like your granddaughter (?) who should get so much more consideration. That key deposit thing has been going on for years.... our children had to pay a key deposit when at University and were supposed to get it back when you leave but the landlord ALWAYS find something and the deposit is kept !
ReplyDeleteHow are you doing up your ladder ? Take care won’t you ? XXXX
I've been waiting in all day for that ladder, but since the delivery company is YODEL and they now say they are not coming until tomorrow, I think I will have to drive to Bristol to get it on Monday - unless they have lost it. YODEL are bloody useless.
DeleteYodel are bloody useless ...... last year, they threw two cameras that were Christmas presents over the fence where we can’t get to it !!! We had to take the fence panel out !
Delete1: they shouldn’t throw breakable things over fences and
2: they are bloody useless 😂 !!!
XXXX
They threw a friend's parcel through a first floor window once.
DeleteLike I said earlier on Cro Magnon's blog, it accounts for much of what is wrong with the housing market and the generational wealth gap. The way the Overton Window has changed means what used to be considered one-nation conservatism is now branded Marxism. It could be about to get a lot worse.
ReplyDeleteIt will definitely get much worse, but half the population will remain untouched. Me? Left wing? No. Just a human.
DeleteToo right Tom. And then we wonder why nobody wants to join the profession.
ReplyDeleteMany of the London nurses are Filipino. Many sailors are Filipino too. Most soft fruit-pickers here are Eastern European, despite the growers advertising the jobs to young Brits who are not interested. Young Brits have been encouraged to spend another 4 or 5 years at university because it makes the government employment figures look good. I hate the administration of this country. They are - like most businesses - verging on criminal. I have never been so angry as I am now, not even when I was a student in the late 1960s. We had it so easy then.
DeleteMeant to say ..... great photograph. XXXX
ReplyDeleteHer boyfriend took it. He's a professional cameraman.
DeleteThe situation is appalling for our health works, teachers, and other essential services. There should be subsidised rental properties for them not only in London, but also in many of our other large cities. For example Bristol is also far too expensive - it is so difficult for our young people today having to manage on inadequate incomes, and also having to pay of their university debts too.
ReplyDeleteNursing homes still exist, but expectations for standards of living are much higher than that now. The only people who use nursing homes are overseas nurses who only plan to be in the UK for a limited amount of time and send money back home while they are here.
DeleteI mean nurse's homes, of course.
DeleteIt can't be better in places like Australia but the preponderance of English & Irish nurses in our hospitals must indicate something. Better weather for all the injustice, perhaps? I met a young neurosurgeon working in a London NHS hospital in the early 90s who was getting paid 25K pounds annually at a time when bankers in the City were pulling in one million pound bonuses at Xmas. It shocked me then and I still think about it. No country seems to pay the frontline professions what they deserve.
ReplyDeleteI think the rates of pay vary wildly amongst surgeons. I heard that many of them are refusing to do overtime because it all gets eaten up in taxes and they end up working long hours for nothing.
DeleteWhat a wonderful picture from Blue Eye's boyfriend. How I wish the world were far better for all categories of people, but, like you, I'll start with the nurses.
ReplyDeleteIt's Green Eyes. I am Blue Eyes! Yes, taking care of people who take care of us is a good beginning.
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