LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson acknowledged on Wednesday his “own huge debt” to nurses working in the health service after he was asked about a nurse who tended to him last year but has since decided to quit.
A nurse who looked after Johnson in a hospital intensive care ward as he battled COVID-19 is leaving her job, with a newspaper saying on Tuesday she had become fed up with his government’s treatment of healthcare workers.
“I think the whole house (of parliament) acknowledges our collective debt to the nurses of the NHS (National Health Service) and I certainly acknowledge my own huge personal debt and that’s why of all the professions in this country … in very, very tough times, we have asked the public sector pay review board to look at an increase in pay for nurses,” he told parliament.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout, writing by Elizabeth Piper; editing by William James)
