My new Post!

[Tilly Brice]

Maybe there are unofficial ' passes' ?


Tilly

[Eun]

Well we had no choice but to stay with our son as the nurses were a shower of useless bints who did not care and did not listen and should not have been in the job. Despite my formal complaint things have still not been sorted - all they have done is lie and try to cover each others backs. Somewhat like Social Work departments as well come to think of it. Nurses are angels my ar*e.

Eun

[Tilly Brice]

Well excuse me Eun. But I was an angel , I cared for my patients and as far as I am aware so did the rest of the nurses on the ward. The problem is people don't see the other side of nursing...the days and nights we have all gone without a break because the ward was understaffed...the days when I have been bitten punched and scratched by drug addicts and confused patients. The times when we have been expected to lift a patient when they weigh more than the whole nursing team. The problem is that the system is abused from all levels..the patients that come in with no English and relatives bring their food in and we are expected to heat it up...when health and safety tell us not too because of risk of not heating pre cooked food properly!!..and then when we we explain this to the relatives we get called insensitive bitches!!!
The NHS should be abolished and privatised...that would give more nurses to patients...I promise you that...

[jenny lucas]

Eun and Tilly - just my take as a 'lay person' in this, but I think you BOTH outline what is wrong with the NHS! The NHS seems to be 'hijacked' by those who have either brought their own ills upon themselves (drunks, druggies, etc) (OK, some have had hideous childhoods and there is therefore some mitigating factor why they shelter in drink and drugs, but that does NOT apply to all drunks and druggies by any means!), or, it's hijacked by those with 'trivial' ills (boob jobs, tattoos that sort of thing), and finally by those who quite frankly are just exploiting it for a free ride (foreigners!) (and yes, I know that some of those foreigners come from countries that are so badly run that 'the people' are penurious - though usually their governments are rolling in lard and oil revenues and aid and ill-gotten riches!).

Oh yes, and by the obese, as well, don't let's forget them! (And yes, I know, mitigating circumstances for some of them, too!) (eg, hands up anyone here who is a carer who DOESN'T 'comfort eat'??)(My hand did NOT shoot up!)

But for those who are afflicted by 'true' diseases - and someone like Eun's son with DMD is hard to beat for 'non-culpable' diseases!!!!! - oh, then the NHS starts 'rationing' care like billyo. Even with cancer, like my husband, when we, with othe rcancer patients, protested to NICE about not letting them have the latest drugs, we get the sickening answer 'oh, if we spent money on YOU, then we'd have to cut back on others'! ....while still forking out gastric bands left right and centre, etc etc etc.....

So, I guess, my sympathies lie both with Eun, raging about what her son, and her family, is put through, and with Tilly, too, having their time skills wasted on binge drinkers and their ilk....

[Tilly Brice]

Hi Jenny.

Yes I agree with your post. But a few bad nurses doesn't make us all bad nurses as Eun suggested in her " nurses are angels my bottom" phrase.

I stand by what I said...if you got rid of the NHS you would see a marked difference in care, because there would be no 4 hour waiting in A&E, because all the drunks would pass out at home. The would be no bed blockers and the wards would be better staffed because the funding could be spent on staff instead of bed blockers

Tilly


Ps.i used to be proud of the NHS in this country. But it's a laughing stock these days. It is abused and the nurses feel under valued

[Sajehar]

I don't know about Pass systems, but in the hospital my mum (84, with dementia, bad arthritis) recently had to stay twice, there were notices outside each of her wards saying that if you had to visit outside of Visiting hours, then please speak to the staff.
In each case I spoke to the staff and was allowed to be with mum practically all day long. I kept myself to myself by reading a book when mum was sleeping; what a difference it made to her when she woke up and someone she knew was by her bedside!
Eventually I ended up running errands for other patients in mum's wards not fortunate enough to have visitors. Silly things like getting them a newspaper, etc.

Perhaps mum was lucky, but I could not fault the care she received, from the cleaners to the consultants.
I can only talk about my personal experience, but I came across no nurses nattering at stations whilst patients languished in their own excreta, etc.
No doubt that does happen but, like aeroplanes, I suspect we only ever get to hear about the ones that crash. The majority that fly makes for boring news.

On a more sinister note, I suspect that's there has been a concerted effort in the media of late to get the general public to dislike/distrust/hate even, the NHS. All the easier to privatise it, IF the public is already against it.

So successful has this campaign been, that I suspect Tilly will get her wish; a privatised health service. It's actually already happening. God help us all. Nurses for everybody, provided you've got money.
G4S anybody?

[Tilly Brice]

Hi Sajehar.

I agree with everything you have said. You only have to watch A&E 24 to see what is happening to our beloved health care system " little jimmy has had a itchy winky for 4 days " , don't they realise what they are doing to the system for heavens sake!! But the system is so under valued an scared that they have to treat little jimmys winky instead of sending him home and explaining to his mother that a itchy winky isn't an emergency!!!cos if they do it will make front page news!!
Heaven forbid the nurses stop for a second because if the do they are called idle bints..

Privatising the NHS isn't a wish. It was just an opinion of a once over worked under paid under valued staff nurse. It would certainly make people wish they had supported a floundering health care system that the UK was admired internationally .

Tilly

[Lazydaisy]

Tilly, a itchy winky on little Jimmy could be a serious infection,or there could be Diabetes,a raised blood sugar with spillage into the kidneys which then causes irriatation and thrush on Jimmy's little winky. It IS something that may need to be looked at as an emergency.(he may only have told his Mum today that it has been itchy for four days).And it is something that has happened in our family,although thankfully the GP was able to be visited the same day.
I have seen both good and bad in the NHS. I am still very hurt with the memory of how my family was treated when my son was lying dead in A and E.I am also very puzzled as to why my father had much better treatment in the same wards than my late son had had. If my son had been treated and test results puzzled over as well as my Dad,then he may well still be alive today.
My daughter and grandson have been treated badly in A and E.They went there last summer when his blood sugar spiked at over 20.Although I was was not there, I am aware of how they were treated. My husband was there(as was a good friend of ours).My grandson does not have Diabetes,but there is plenty in the family,and she tested his blood sugar because he was drinking gallons and had other symptoms also.My husband and I virtually diagnosed our own baby and our elder son,as we recognised the same symptoms.
I was in hospital collecting my husband after he had had hand surgery,and we had to wait for take home meds to be delivered. A man in the bed opposite(a man in his 40's probably),had both arms in plaster,so could not use either of them. His cup of tea arrived,nurses said they were going to coffee and they would give him his when they got back(the other nurses were only overseeing that bay, the patients were not their responsibility),so I gave him his tea. He said it was the first hot tea he had drunk since he had been in there.When I was nursing, the patients comfort was paramount. If we did not have time for a coffee break,then we didn't get one. I have had times when I would have a coffee or tea on the ward while feeding a patient, taking sips of mine in between their sips,and other times where there was no time to even take a sip.
I have also seen brilliant nurses, Drs,cleaning staff and others. Wonderful people.When my Dad was dying, the staff kept him so comfortable,and whatever he wanted to eat or drink was brought to him at whatever time he wanted it.
I can't say that I was ever under-paid. I was a grade D Enrolled Nurse,and my husband was a househusband.Our family of five was able to be kept comfortable with my salary and child benefit,we had a mortgage and interest rates were very high when our children were young,but we had fun family days out and one summer holiday each year.We worked hard,very hard,but 5 weeks holidays and 10 bank holiday days,which equalled 7 weeks holiday overall was,I thought, very good.
I do miss nursing, very much,but wouldn't want to go back now. I don't like the way that nurses are treated,not just by members of the public but by the powers that be.I have relations in their 50's working for the NHS,who will be relieved when retirement gets to them,because conditions have changed so much.

[Tilly Brice]

Hi lazy daisy.

I think you missed my point... I am well aware of what a itchy winky could be..my point was over 70% of people that walk through the doors of A&E should not be there.

I am not going to get into a debate about how peoples relatives was treated and what visitors had to do for other patients.. But I will point out that most hospital infections are transferred by " well meaning " visitors of other patients...bed-to-bed-cross infection.

I am sorry your family was badly treated and I am sorry for your experience within the NHS . Has for you being well paid I can not comment. My hours of work was 7:45-3pm after handover I never once left the ward before 4pm. The same with a late shift and night shift..the same for many many breaks being missed. I can remember a time when on a ward of 24 patients 19 of those needed all care and all with only 5 staff on the early shift ..all needed feeding and a bed bath and 2 hourly turns , doctors ward rounds pharmacy rounds etc. try explaining to a very irate relative that you haven't bathed their relative because of the circumstances just mentioned above, and then tell them you haven't had a drink since before you left for work. Oh an heaven forbid we sit down to write up in patient notes ... Cos that looks like we are bone idle.. But if we don't do it and something isn't documented we was dragged over the coals!!!



Tilly

[Lazydaisy]

I never had a break when I was on nights either. Although not a staff nurse, I was in charge of the ward I was on,so unable to leave.
Day duty was 7.45-4.15pm,or 11.15am -8.15pm,and nights were 7.45pm-8am.
Don't worry, I washed my hands before giving a patient a cup of tea and again afterwards. No different to when I was working. After all, nurses these days do their shopping in their uniforms,carrying possible infection in and out.
Like Eun,when my son with a Learning Disability was an inpatient, we had a bad experience.I could not even go to the toilet,and then one nurse said she would keep an eye on him, I went to spend a penny,came back and he had disappeared and the nurse wasn't even aware of it! He had got out through the locked doors and was elsewhere in the hospital. Thankfully he was found fairly quickly.