The call comes from Dr Ryan Essex, a researcher specialising in public health ethics, and Dr Sharon Weldon, a reader in nursing research and education, and former nurse.
The pair have co-authored a short paper looking at healthcare worker strikes and the pandemic.
Dr Essex said: “The are now numerous examples of healthcare workers around the world going on strike at some point during the pandemic.
“We have seen this in places such as Hong Kong, Zimbabwe, the USA and South Korea. While contexts have varied substantially, almost every action has explicitly demanded more personal protective equipment (PPE).
“Almost 1,000 UK healthcare workers are reported to have died since the beginning of the pandemic. If that many firefighters had died in 12 months because they didn’t have the right equipment it would be a scandal – and rightly so.
“Strikes raise fundamental questions, not only related to what healthcare workers owe society, but what society owes them in return.
“In justifying such action, the devil is in the detail. In the UK there are many reasons that healthcare workers should take action.
“Evidence shows strikes can happen without affecting vulnerable patients. Non-essential services could be withdrawn while more acute services are maintained, for example. Rarely, if ever, have healthcare workers simply walked out on those who need care the most.
“As well as drawing attention to this phenomenon, our aim is to start a conversation about the ethical and practical dimensions of such action, along with how it could be used to secure important health related gains.”
Dr Weldon added: “I’ve been there as a nurse, feeling unhappy with conditions, but you are conflicted because of your patients. You don’t want to put them in danger even though, as Ryan says, you aren’t necessarily, but there is still that feeling of guilt.
“There is also guilt about colleagues and them having to pick up your work. But when others have gone on strike, we were all supportive – it’s that old idea of putting everyone before yourself.”
Dr Essex added that paying healthcare workers more is not enough on its own, and resourcing for the NHS needs to be improved. “There are multiple systemic failings and structural problems in the health service and it was barely getting by before the pandemic,” he said.
Health Care Worker Strikes and the Covid Pandemic is part of a larger body of work that Drs Essex and Weldon are writing up, looking at the impact of strike action in healthcare.
