Coronavirus: ‘Poor pay and lack of respect’: Boris Johnson’s Covid nurse hands in notice

Intensive care nurse who looked after UK PM Boris Johnson walks, slamming government for handling of pandemic.

UK PM Boris Johnson. ill with Covid, and Jenny McGee (inset) one of the nurses he credited with saving his life when he was in intensive care. She has quit the NHS, citing a lack or respect for workers from the government, and poor pay. Pictures: Supplied

A nurse who cared for Boris Johnson while he was in intensive care with COVID-19 has quit the National Health Service accusing the government of lacking “respect” for healthcare workers and handling the pandemic badly.

Jenny McGee was one of two nurses thanked by the prime minister for keeping a vigil by his bedside “every second of the night” while he was gravely ill in St Thomas’ hospital in London with COVID-19 to ensure he was getting enough oxygen.

She recalled treating the prime minister, explaining: “All around him there was lots and lots of sick patients, some of whom were dying. I remember seeing him and thinking he looked very, very unwell. He was a different colour really.”

Along with Luis Pitarma, a Portuguese nurse, McGee was invited to Downing Street and photos of their meeting were shared publicly to mark the NHS’s 72nd birthday.

She has now handed in her resignation from the NHS.

‘I’m just sick of it’

“We’re not getting the respect and now pay that we deserve,” she told The Year Britain Stopped, a Channel 4 documentary about the pandemic to be aired on May 24. “I’m just sick of it. So I’ve handed in my resignation.”

McGee, who is originally from Invercargill in New Zealand, said that on her visit to Downing Street the prime minister’s staff had tried to get her to participate in a “clap for carers” photo shoot with Johnson.

“It would have been a really good photo opportunity,” she said. “You know, kind of like: ‘Boris and his NHS friends.’ But I wanted to stay out of it. Lots of nurses felt that the government hadn’t led very effectively — the indecisiveness, so many mixed messages. It was just very upsetting.

A handout image released by 10 Downing Street, shows, from left, Boris Johnson, staff nurse Luis Pitarma and Ward Sister Jenny McGee after his release from hospital. Picture: Andrew Parsons / 10 Downing Street / AFP

“Yes, we have put ourselves on the line and we have worked so incredibly hard and there’s a lot of talk about how we’re all heroes and all that sort of stuff. But at the same time, I’m just not sure if I can do it. I don’t know how much more I’ve got to give to the NHS.”

Staff ‘burnt out, exhausted’

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) warned that McGee’s departure could form part of an “exodus” from the profession and said nurses are “burnt out and exhausted”.

Pat Cullen, acting head of the RCN, said the 1 per cent pay rise was “an insult and shows how little the government listens to and respects nursing staff who have been putting their lives on the line”.

She added: “There are already tens of thousands of nursing vacancies and we continue to warn of an exodus from the profession if the government does not demonstrate its respect by giving nurses a fair pay rise for the skilled work they do.”

Figures show that there were around 11,000 more nurses working in the NHS in January 2021 compared to January 2020, up from 290,000 to 301,000.

Describing the situation at her hospital in the run-up to Christmas last year, when the government had announced plans to relax restrictions on social mixing over the festive period, McGee said: “This time there was more than the first surge. The nurses are stretched even more. An absolute shitshow to be honest. At that point, I don’t know how to describe the horrendousness of what we were going through. We were desperate.”

Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said that McGee’s comments were a “devastating indictment of Boris Johnson’s approach to the people who put their lives on the line for him and our whole country”.

In a statement released through Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS foundation trust, McGee said: “After the toughest year of my nursing career, I’m taking a step back from the NHS but hope to return in the future. I’m excited to start a nursing contract in the Caribbean, before a holiday back home in New Zealand later in the year.

“I’m so proud to have worked at St Thomas’ hospital and to have been part of such a fantastic team.”

Pitarma did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

A Downing Street spokesman said NHS staff had gone “above and beyond over the past year” and said the government wanted to support them adding: “That is why they have been exempted from the public sector-wide pay freeze implemented as a result of the difficult economic situation created by the pandemic.”

The Times