I wonder how many of us are under the opinion that all nurses are poorly paid?
(Carefull not to give too much info away here)
I have been seeing a foreign nurse for a few months and she commented about Tax and NI, she is annoyed that she has to pay it without getting any benefit from these deductions.
My head swelled and I went into boasting mode to tell her that in my last job my Tax and NI deductions were approx $1300 (pounds) per month. She said "mine were almost $1700 this month!" That dropped me down to earth with a bump.
What has happened to the poorly paid nurses then?
This person is a very hard worker and works most weekends and often does double shifts, but $1700 for a months Tax and NI is serious money. Her house mate said "oh mine were only around $700 this month because I didn't work any extra"
I know contract nurses can get upto $50 per hour from the health service, but these two are on permanent contracts.
I wonder if this is this the reason that poorly paid nurse headlines are missing from our newspapers these days!
On a side issue, the foreign nurses that I have been mixing with recently say they are needed in this country because so many of the UK nurses are off sick. They say so many of them take the job until they are in a position to go off long term sick. I know the dangers of lifting patients and how hard the job must be, but these foreign nurses somehow seem to be less affected by sickness.
Then again they dont get the same sort of sick pay.
