District nurses training carers about care?
Bowel care training for me, by the district nurse, consisted of "You take the top off the enema tube and just pop it in"......
Manual stimulation for evacuation training consisted of ................................................. nothing - no guidance, no help, no explaining, NOTHING. The only 'training' I was given was by hubby, who just happened to be lying on his side in bed, funnily enough, trying to tell me how to do it ................!
District Nurses have never, ever trained me to do ANYTHING. Have never ever spoken to me about the above and how to do it properly or safely. Between the PAs and myself, we have always done the above, well, if hubby needs to 'go', he needs to 'go' NOW and if it happens in the middle of the night, or in the middle of a museum (oh, yes), then where are the District Nurses THEN, eh?
I have never, ever had any official training in ANYTHING, apart from Assisted coughing leaflets from the Spinal Unit.
I have always had to work everything out for myself, or with hubby's spoken guidance, because when he's lying on his side, needing his poo getting out, it's rather difficult to show me how to physically do the internal manual stimulation.
And if I sound so cross about it, that's because I am. Care workers and PAs are paid to be trained in all these 'unsavoury' caring necessities - WE ARE NOT and are lucky if we get training in anything at all. Nobody asks us if we're all right, or if we're still coping with bowel days, we're left on our own and nobody asks us anything. I could be feeding hubby deadly nightshade for all they know.
