With the UK government providing relief to all sectors in the wake of outbreak of COVID-19, campaigners have urged the government to waive the debts of student nurses who have just joined the national battle against the pandemic.
NHS sources confirmed that more than 15,000 student nurses have opted to join NHS frontline staff across the UK hospitals to cover the storage of nursing staff during the coronavirus crisis.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), regulatory body has said that trainee nurses in the final six months of their programme can complete the remainder of their course as a paid placement working in wards and community to help tackle Covid-19. However, there are growing concerns that the newly graduating nurses will be burdened with thousands of pounds of debts when they leave their universities. Previously students nurses in England were not required to pay tuition fees as they used to receive the government bursary, however this was taken away by the Conservative party government from the 1 August 2017.
With the covid-19 positive patients requires specialist care and dependency, Nurses and health workers have been playing a truly vital role in the treatment of these seriously ill patients. Their role has already appreciated by the PM Boris Johnson claiming that his life has been saved by two foreign-born nurses after being admitted into hospital for contracting the coronavirus. NHS official figures shows most of the deaths from Covid-19 occurred in nurses and care work supporters, they are the people on the frontline and account for half of all NHS staff.
According to the statistics, around 40 % of all the UK nurses and midwives are from the BAME communities in many hospitals. Heath officials confirmed that before the pandemic, the NHS in England was short of around 40,000 nurses and now these student nurses have been volunteering to help their colleagues in fighting the deadly virus. Leading Barrister Khadim Al’Hassan who has been a voice of reason in the sea of rhetoric on issues of national importance commented “The shortage of nurses in the UK can now be correlated back to the burden of debt they are left with and the removal of bursaries by the conservative government, and it is times like this when there is much talk of ‘Save our NHS’ that they need to mean it by supporting the heart and soul of the NHS which is represented by nurses who are the ones who provide the minute by minute care to patients. If the government and the Prime Minister truly appreciates the hard work of nurses, and the pivotal role in helping sick people get better then it is there duty to support them and keep them in the NHS. In this crisis we would not want them leaving at the first opportunity of better pay and the moving abroad’, Al’ Hassan added.
Touched by their brave action of risking their lives to save other, last week more than 80 members of parliament (MP) have asked the Heath Secretary Matt Hancock to cancel their outstanding student debt. In the letter wrote by Labour MP for Luton North Sarah Owen supported by the MPs, they said student nurses are risking their own health to help care for people during this crisis in really difficult circumstances, managing unprecedented demand and often without protective equipment.
The MPs letter states” they are making a vital contribution in our national effort to beat the coronavirus. We ask you and your department to commit to doing all it can to support these nurses who will be facing the start of a new career like no one in our health service has before. The MPs called on the government to support these new nurses by cancelling the student debt they have incurred throughout their studies. Cancelling this debt, as the first step for this group of hardworking nurses would be an important signal to those starting their career during this crisis that they are valued, not just by the public and their patients, but by their government as well, the letter concluded.
