Student nurses can't be blamed for refusing to risk their lives for coronavirus

It’s easy to rush to judgement when you only have an abstract idea of what it’s like to make a choice like this

Student nurses are facing a grim choice: join the NHS frontline, or have their training suspended for up to a year. Many will be eager to play their part in the coronavirus effort, but many will struggle with the decision of whether to risk the health of their loved ones?

This soul searching is not made any easier by the online abuse those whose choose to opt-out are facing. Imagine how this compounds the unnecessary guilt these students are already feeling. It’s easy to rush to judgement when you only have an abstract idea of what it’s like to make a choice like this.

These are the nurses that will care for those vilifying them when they are at their most vulnerable and in need of care. From prisoners to pension fund managers, nurses don’t make judgments about who they treat. They just ensure these people receive the compassion and treatment they require, irrespective of the bigotry and ignorance these patients have exhibited towards nurses during this crisis.

Although these students will already have experience of the NHS from the training placements they have completed in their training so far, they will be entering an environment that has radically changed in the last few weeks. The NHS is rapidly adapting and prioritising who it cares for and how it that care is provided. This will be an unfamiliar place even for these student nurses, adding to any personal stress and anxiety they are already experiencing, they need the same level of support as their qualified peers who will undoubtedly provide the reassurance they need, even if that’s not forthcoming from some outside the NHS.

Nursing and nurse training was in trouble before Covid-19 struck, the numbers of nurses in training fluctuated not on the basis of demand but on a political whim and the ideology of austerity. The political decision to impose a decade of austerity is also responsible for the significant number of nursing vacancies which many NHS trusts struggled to fill, placing further pressure on the workforce. Covid-19 has moved the shortage of nurses from being a fringe issue to one of national importance, but no amount of political spin can disguise the structural problems in nursing. It’s telling that the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, admitted that unlike doctors there is no tally of the number of nurses dying due to Covid-19. Suggesting he and his colleagues don’t really value the role nurses are playing and the impact it’s having on them.

It may look like a pragmatic response to move student nurses to the frontline, but this is nothing more than a desperate move to make up numbers. In return for risking their lives they’ll be paid £10.80 an hour, a sum that will do little to dent the considerable debt many will have built up during their training.

It’s cruel enough that some of our student nurses are being vilified for choosing to protect their families by staying out of practice, but we have to make sure that we aren’t setting up those students who join the frontline during this pandemic. It’s unlikely that all these students will have the skills or mental and physical capacity to deal with what they encounter. We must ensure they are not scapegoated if things go wrong.

It’s just as heroic to protect those who are vulnerable at home as it is to do the same in hospital – that’s not up for debate. So on Thursday at 8pm when you’re clapping for the NHS, give an extra clap for students nurses – both those on the NHS frontlines and those at home.