In My View: Nurses really are angels and deserve more

If you haven’t heard of waterboarding it’s what intelligence agencies use to interrogate terror suspects by basically choking them with water.

I was invited back for another endoscopy recently and was absolutely dreading it as I’d had one before and found the experience horrendous.

They put a large (they say thin), flexible tube down your throat with a camera on it to view inside your stomach. You have two choices about the sedation beforehand – either a spray that numbs the throat a wee bit or a sedative that kind of knocks you out.

I’d had the spray before and wanted the sedative this time, but I wasn’t allowed it as there was no one with me to take me home afterwards which was my own fault as I should have arranged this.

I told the nurse I was ‘very nervous’ and she assured me she’d be there holding my hand throughout it all. The moment I lay down on the bed she must have saw how vulnerable I was as I became quite distressed when I started choking.

This nurse, however, was right there with an arm round me, assuring me I was “doing fine”, stroking my face and guiding me through it as only these professionals know how. She has no idea how grateful I am.

Then, to my angst, it was announced NHS staff would only receive a one per cent pay rise this year while MPs, who earn a whopping £76,000, got a 1.4 per cent rise despite public sector pay being supposedly capped at one per cent until 2020.

Makes you wonder where the priorities lie in this country, but I’ll certainly be using my vote in the general election to let these politicians know what mine are.