10. Plaid Cymru Debate: Healthcare workers’ pay

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:47 pm on 6 October 2021.

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Photo of Cefin Campbell Cefin Campbell Plaid Cymru 4:47, 6 October 2021

Dirprwy Lywydd, I spoke last night to a senior nursing sister, who has given nearly 40 years of her life to the NHS. She told me very movingly that never during her long career has she felt so low, so burnt out and so undervalued. She was telling me how, during the early days of the pandemic as a community nurse, she and her colleagues visited patients without adequate personal protective equipment, not knowing whether those patients who had often been discharged from hospitals had COVID, and how they felt terribly vulnerable. And yet, through all of this, they carried on and never flinched in their obligations to the patients in their care. These brave health workers put their own lives at risk in order to save the lives of others and worked long, tiring hours, over and above what was expected from them, to look after those who utterly depended on them. And what we saw across the country were countless examples of selfless sacrifice, and, in circumstances worse than we've ever seen since the second world war, our health workers showed a stoicism and conviction that was as unstinting as it was inspiring.