Letter: Driving our nurses abroad

AS I post yet more goodbye cards to qualified, experienced nurses reluctantly leaving their loved ones and country to work abroad for a decent wage and better conditions, the reality that our nursing profession is becoming an endangered species is very frightening indeed ("Nurses to vote on pay action", 17 March).

The Government meets pay increases for all other NHS trust hospital staff except nurses, who are begrudgingly given a miserly 1 per cent and left to plead humiliatingly for the balance. We no longer have a National Health Service when individual trust hospitals, like private hospitals, control nurses pay. Our nurses' workload constantly increases. They often work without pay and administer treatments which doctors used to be responsible for. More and more are leaving and few students are entering to train.

Soon the Government will have to spend millions of pounds of our taxes advertising overseas for nurses and paying their fares, fees and expenses to come here. Meanwhile other countries will reap the benefit of the high standard of training and professionalism of our nurses which our taxes have paid for.

Rosaleen Donovan

Sherbourne, Dorset