To think night staff could be a bit quieter

I spent three nights on a ward with five other mothers and six newborns and nurses coming in and out every few minutes. Thinking about it still makes me shudder. By the end of it, I honestly thought I was going to die and I was completely unhinged. It would be regarded as completely unacceptable under the Geneva convention. I have no idea why it's regarded as perfectly normal in UK hospitals.

So .... did you all complain.. record the chats on your phone .. tell the staff how inconsiderate they were being? This total disregard of patient welfare seems to be a particularly British thing. German hospitals prioritise patient sleep as do French ones. Unless people complain nothing will change. The staff know they're keeping you awake - they don't care

Oh this is what I had just come into say! I have never been so sleep deprived as when I was in hospital. Whilst waiting for surgery, in between IVs I actually went home for a few hours to fucking sleep during the day

It’s not the obs, it’s the sitting at the nurses station in hysterics that travels so so much.

I feel your pain. I'm in hospital and have been for over 5 months. The constant beeping of monitors alone drives me nuts.

Last night I couldn't sleep because of snoring. I assumed it was the new patient opposite me who's seriously ill, but it was actually the nurse. I despair.

When i sleep nothing wakes me except when i am in hospital, nurses screeching and laughing their heads off, nurses banging doors and nurses singing ! Nurses need to learn to STFU when on a nightshift.

So so agree with you op.
When I had my youngest dc, I was on the bed next to the door and had the sink and bin next to us, my baby would jump everytime the nurses opened and shut the bin, they made no attempt to do it quietly and would constantly wake us..I was fuming but after telling 2 midwifes to please do it gently I gave up as there was a different midwife doing it every time so no bloody point.

Nighttimes are the worst in hospital. I was in hospital for three weeks once and I would dread the nights as nothing about hospital at night is conducive to a decent night’s sleep. And for the love of god don’t keep waking me up to take a sleeping tablet!!

So YANBU! One night - during lockdown I had to listen to hours of argument between 2 nurses (not sure?) over covid - basically one was anti-vacc conspiracy oriented. Apart from trying and failing to sleep - the topic really didn't inspire confidence given the setting.....

YANBU. I had an 18 hour stay in hospital to be monitored after being carted off in an ambulance with the migraine from hell. I'd had several awful days already, really needed to rest. By the time my partner picked me up I was shaking with fatigue because I'd only been able to cat nap for the entire time I was in. Yes, they have a job to do but they don't need to slam and bang about all night, the lights don't have to be on full strength (I spent most of the time with my blanket from om over my head) and they don't need to yell across the ward at each other at 3 am.

In my experience a lot of nurses should absolutely not be in a caring profession as they patently don't give a shit. The worst experience was waiting to get surgery on my knee and hearing 2 nurses bitch loudly about my dad,who was a Consultant Haematologist at the time, hellish. I am still ashamed that I didn't speak up, but I was so shocked. Never told anyone this.

I went to visit my father at the undertakers. There was a lovely room to view him in. It was next to the mortuary. The residents obviously didn't make any noise but I noticed a big notice for the staff. It asked them to be completely quiet in that area and to remember ,at all times, that people visiting were going through one of the worst times of their lives and so laughter and chatting was inappropriate. Obviously the dead are very different to the living but I have had hospital stays like a lot of you have described and they are hell on earth.

What utter arseholes.

I would insist they get a doctor today to prescribe you sleeping pills (I know there’s a shortage of drs overnight).

can anyone bring you earplugs / eye mask / headphones ?

I have had same in every hospital stay & became very mentally ill last time. I’ll do almost anything to avoid hospital now which is not ideal because I have stage IV cancer and am very sick.

Yanbu I was in hospital recently and heard the life story of a HCA chatting to her colleague.

She was saying how her mum had been ill recently and the paramedics hadn’t acted quickly enough and that they were taking action against the NHS so it was a really inappropriate thing for her to be talking about given it was an NHS hospital.

Another story I got was one HCA who was at uni and studying medicine and how he was unsure what he wanted to specialise in etc. I know it’s probably not that fun working nights but I got no sleep.

I don’t get why they couldn’t talk just that little bit quieter or move out of the ward slightly to have those discussions.

I've had exactly the same experience. Loud shrieking and laughing from the nurses, doors banging, bin lids banging. When you're already feeling vulnerable the obvious lack of basic consideration can be frightening. There seems to be little care in some of these caring professions.

They also lied in my notes. I was in for 5 weeks on a very noisy ward and the lack of sleep and stress from the noise was making me dangerously ill. I complained (nicely) every day and kept saying that I had got no sleep and it was making me ill. I got wheeled to a scan and they gave me my notes to hold. I read them and every single morning they had recorded "patient slept well". 😡

Thats great @Mammyloveswine. Most people are not assholes or trying to deliberately keep you up or disturb you, and its great that the ward nurse acknowledged it was a rough night - probably just as much for them as for you.

I had a night in a high dependency unit and the night staff were awful. They talked so loudly all night that I heard every conversation. I ended up with a raging migraine and got 1 hours sleep at about 4.30am through sheer exhaustion.

Do you walk around on tiptoe and whisper on your work shifts?

Allowing patients to sleep is actually a part of the care they must provide. If they don't keep quiet, they do not fulfil their professional responsibilities.

Id rather they be awake and alert

And they must, along with being as quiet as possible.

How awful it is that we have to accept the low standards of care in NHS.

No that's not how it works

It's insane. You need sleep, good food, a calm environment and fresh air to get better. Hospitals don't give you any of this.

DS was in hospital earlier this year, even in a private room I could only sleep 2-3 hours a night because of the noise. He'd get woken twice a night for medication that I then found out could be given in daylight hours.

Can you put white noise or calming music on headphones? Might help

When I had dd1 I was woken up every hour or so to check blood pressure before and after her birth for 4 days. It was so tiring. Then they moved me to a ward day 5 with 4 beds. They put me alone in there with closed doors and a sign telling no one to disturb me so I could sleep. It was weird but nice and quiet.

With dd2 I had ear phones, ear plugs and my own pillow to help me sleep well. It’s horrible being woken so frequently.

There are matrons, you wouldnt really see a matron at night though, and very infrequently n the wards, they are more like department managers that oversee recruitment and budgets rather than actually on the wards ensuring standards are met.

YANBU, I've always said that the worse place to recover is hospital! It's noisy, boiling hot and there's a light on somewhere. And don't get me started on waking me up for obs at 6:30am when breakfast isn't served for at least another hour. I did a night in a private hospital where I had my own room and that was better as there was no noise from other patients and I could have the window open (the nurse was convinced I must have a temperature because my room was apparently so cold so clearly they weren't used to fresh air!) but there was still light coming in under the door, there were buzzers going off and staff talking outside in the corridor.