I SURVIVE ON PATIENTS LEFTOVERS

Image:  Paul David Drabble) A Zimbabwean nurse in the UK says she is struggling so much that she has resorted to eating patients’ leftovers ...

Image: 

Paul David Drabble)

A Zimbabwean nurse in the UK says she is struggling so much that she has resorted to eating patients’ leftovers during her shifts.

Esther, 36 told The Mirror in an interview: “Yes, I go without meals. Lunch, sometimes breakfast. You can’t go and buy a hot meal at work, it costs £6-7. Sometimes you have to grab extra sandwiches from the patients’ trollies. Of course people will tell you it’s against hospital policy. Some say it’s okay. Most of the time I do that. Sometimes they reprimand you, but they have not reported me. It is common to take the leftover food, even the British nurses do this. It’s only ever the leftovers, and it keeps you going.”

Esther did not want to give her full name to The Mirror or say where she lives and works. Many nurses are too nervous or embarrassed to talk at all about the hardships they face or the possibility of a strike. The mum-of-three, who arrived from Zimbabwe last September on a visa has been earning £26,000 at a hospital in the south of England.

But she has struggled so much with high rent, spiralling energy bills and grocery costs, she is now working in a NHS hospital as an agency nurse and has moved to the north in hope of cheaper living conditions.