Picket line outside St Helens Ambulance Station as strike held

Paramedics, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), call handlers and other staff who are members of the GMB and Unison trade unions are taking part in the action in an ongoing dispute with the government over pay.

While ambulances will still be available on these days, again, they will only be available for people with life-threatening injuries and illnesses.

There was a large turnout at a picket line outside St Helens Ambulance Station, on Jackson Street, today, Wednesday.

The strike is taking place today (Image: St Helens Star)

Tom Henderson, an EMT, unison representative and young members officer, said: "If you go to Whiston Hospital at any time you will usually see 10-plus ambulances there waiting, all of them with patients inside them.

"The hospital do not have enough staff which is just one element of why we are striking today.

“There is a lot of false news nationally about why we are striking, but ultimately what the cost of living crisis we just want to be paid for the essential work that we do serving our communities, the St Helens community.

"We have an OK wage by previous standards and we get compensated because we don’t get time to have a meal.

"However I am myself a dad. I have rent to pay. I have a son with a cow's milk allergy and the cost of that milk has now gone up to £2 a bottle.

"We are all normal people with normal lives and the prices of everything have gone up, water, bills, gas bills, we just need paying in line with the rate of inflation, so we can continue to serve the communities we love to serve."

Tom Henderson and Simon Gerard Lowe (Image: St Helens Star)

Dad-of-one Tom, from St Helens, added: "People have already forgotten that at the height of the pandemic, we were the only ones still going into people's homes, using equipment we had never used before or were not familiar with.

"It was not yet known how easy it was, and what could be done to stop us contracting COVID-19, but we understood that we provide an essential service and we went out into people's homes.

"We may have got claps for the NHS and members of Parliament stood outside 10 Downing Street applauding. The NHS, but claps are not enough.

"We need to pay to reflect the world we now live in."

Meanwhile, Simon Gerard Lowe, an EMT, of 25 years' experience, who is also a picket supervisor and GMB representative, said: "A lot of the staff are demotivated because of the terms and conditions that we are forced to live in.

"Yes, we are striking, but we are attending all category one calls, we have already attended one this morning and we will continue to do so we are embedded in this community, we are from St Helens."

The dad-of-two, from Rainford added: "This government are not respecting the work that we do, we may earn a lot in overtime, but the reason that we earn that money in overtime is because we are away from our families because we are not stopping to have a meal because we are out there, serving people helping people literally trying to save lives.

"A lot of the staff here are struggling to make ends meet. They are doing all of that for work and then they are living hand to mouth and struggle to make ends meet until the next paycheck.

"We don’t want to be striking today, but we are here and we are prepared to strike because it’s the right thing to do."