A nurse has gone viral after sharing her payslip on Twitter - and many commenters are shocked to see that she earns so little.
Nurse Joanna Hickey, from Ireland, posted her payslip for a fortnight's work, amounting to €1,120.80 (£1,000.24).
"A friendly reminder of what a... nurse's near top of the scale wages looks like for 2 weeks," she said. "And if I work weekends and nights away from my child and partner I might make an extra €100."
In the UK, meanwhile, new NHS nurses start on £23,000 before tax (just under £1,000 per fortnight). According to Full Fact, the UK's independent fact checking charity, "Taking into account inflation, new starter nurses are now earning around £1,900 less than they might have in 2010. That's an 8% reduction in pay over eight years."
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The average national UK salary is around £28,000 per year (and around £33,000 in Ireland).
Joanna, who is supporting a strike planned for the end of the month to demand better pay for Irish nurses, starts work at 7.45am and gets out 8.45pm.
On Twitter, she went into detail about the incredible work load she has to carry out.
"My role includes ability to mind complex traumatic brain injuries/ severe sepsis and unstable hemodynamic patients/continuous dialysis/know how set up and use multiple ventilators and high flow oxygen delivery systems/assess ABG's and change ventilation settings inc. ARDS patients," she said.
"Respiratory chest physio outside of normal hours/weekend and night time pharmacy access as no pharmacist during these hours/ward clerk/help families and deal with social services/be a clinical nutritionist and start appropriate feeding outside normal hours as no CN at weekends.
"Recognise the deteriorating patient and act rapid and appropriately/inter-hospital transfer and competently use mobile ICU equipment/intra- hospital transfer & accompany patients from different ICU's nationwide/ educate & train new staff/ teach undergraduate nurses/liase with MDT.
"Continuous education, personal development and be up to date with latest research regarding patient management/competent with ECG reading/competent multiple transfusion usage/ability to prone or log roll patient using correct manual handling...
"And the rest... I am tired."
The nurse's post has been liked and shared more than 2,000 times and has attracted many shocked comments.
"You and all your colleagues in your profession deserve so much more," wrote Christine Loscher. "You all do such a tough job and provide amazing care and support to people in their darkest hours... you should be rewarded and admired."
"This is not right for the work we do and the unsocial hours away from family," Fiona O' Regan added.
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