Nurses are struggling, not just financially, but in many other respects too. They are having to cope with woeful understaffing levels, compounded when colleagues are off sick (often through stress). My daughter is a nurse - she should be on a day off today, but her manager phoned her yesterday begging her to come in because they are so short staffed. The nature of her particular role means that she is often assaulted by her patients - staff have had to go off sick for this reason before. If anyone thinks she has an easy life and doesn't deserve a pay rise, I'd like to see them do her job!
And strikes are supposed to cause inconvenience - there would be little point in anyone striking if it didn't cause disruption. As someone else said, if the government hadn't squandered billions on the whole PPE fiasco, we could afford to give these workers the pay they deserve.