Head of the Royal College of Nurses will this week lead more than 270,000 nurses in historic strike
Outraged at the separate queuing system for “poor kids” receiving free dinners at the Loreto Grammar School in Omagh, she challenged the system.“I hated an injustice and quickly realised in my first year that the nuns, in my opinion, made a difference between those that had money and those that didn’t.“We were entitled to free school meals, and I got to thinking, ‘There’s two queues here’.
Nurses from hospital wards, clinics and the community will take part in the national 12-hour walkout. A second strike is scheduled for December 20th. Under trade union laws, the Royal College of Nursing has to ensure life-preserving care is provided during the action. Today, every day is filled with an endless round of television interviews and Westminster meetings, concluded with late-night walks along the Thames where she phones her husband of more than 30 years, Enda, a GP back in Belfast, and sister Petra, her “soulmate” with a “wicked sense of humour”.“People are going to think I’m a country bumpkin, but I love Dolly and yes, I own a Daniel calendar. I sew in my spare time and just finished making curtains for my daughter, Teresa.
But in her soft Tyrone accent, Cullen insists: “I just can’t sit back and allow that Tory government to walk all over nursing, I can’t do it.”“I’m not dealing with anyone in the British government at the moment as they won’t talk to me. We went down to meet Steve Barclay [the UK health secretary] four weeks ago in Westminster and he made it very clear we would be talking about non-pay issues. I haven’t returned since.
“My experience in dealing with her is if she thinks something needs to be sorted or is wrong, she will deal with it head on. She was always willing to take a risk – but was not reckless.” Her mother’s sudden death from a heart attack a week after her 18th birthday caused trauma, with her sister Petra and herself forced to live apart for the first time.
“My daughter was three months old at the time and my son was five. One of the children’s bedroom windows was put in at home.Prior to Antrim, she worked in the nationalist Twinbrook and Poleglass areas of Belfast in the early 1980s during the height of the Troubles. Her health centre was “like a barracks to get in and out of”: “I can remember being scared as I was only in my early 20s.
“I realised the impact of influencing policy and legislation on behalf of nursing – it wasn’t about pushing pieces of paper around. It can absolutely change the direction of travel for the lives of nurses and patients,” she says.
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