To think night staff could be a bit quieter

Perhaps patients facing overnight stays, who know they are light sleepers, could think ahead and bring ear plugs and blindfolds. There is to much dependence on people having to be told everything when common sense should prevail.

Well that doesn’t help if you are an emergency admission, and many people who attend hospital for a minor operation are doing so for the very first time, so understandably assume that the noise levels will be reasonable enough to sleep. And funnily enough even hospitals themselves don’t include “eye mask and ear plugs” in the list of things to bring on admittance.

Again this is patient blaming. Saying people are too thick to behave with common sense.

To me common sense would predict that most people would have a reasonable chance of sleep during a hospital stay. Not as good as in your own home obviously, but it’s reasonable to assume that some effort could be made by hospital staff to facilitate patient sleep.

You’re not unreasonable at all, and I hope you soon feel better. There are some truly wonderful staff in hospitals, and sadly some who show no respect for patients - some of the things I heard and experienced when I was in hospital I wish I had felt well enough to formally report because they were genuine safety issues, but there was also a lot of rudeness - only from a couple of nurses but when they were on duty it was horrible :(

i agree the noise is awful - i was in a bed with a thin partition wall next to the nurse station - buzzers ringing all night - light cld not be switched off i had to put a towel over my eyes - noise from chatty and laughing staff all night no respect for patients - if i had been mobile however ill i wld have gone home

Yes but you’re ignoring one important element - patients attending them often have a choice of provider and there’s usually a culture of service. Staff loudly chatting and talking ( about non medical matters) in a patient sleeping area would not be tolerated and if that happened complaints would be made and actioned. There are too many NHS staff who are brutalised and brutal and the patients come last.

YANBU. Every time I’ve had an overnight stay in hospital it’s been ridiculous. People are supposed to require rest - it’s the number 1 thing to “get better” but then they aren’t given any!? How does that work.
After I gave birth to my oldest I was in shock (it had taken less than 2 hours) and my husband had been kicked out, I was wheeled onto a ward with about 5 other women. It was around 10pm, I was shaking and felt really sick, I just needed some sleep and to get warm. Nope, no chance of that, the aircon was up really high and loud, the lady at the other end of the ward was literally yelling and screaming into her phone as her family were abroad and she wanted to tell them the news. A lady opposite her had the same issue so they were in contest. Someone else was snoring really loudly. Another woman had a baby who just screamed all night long. They wheeled in another lady just after midnight who looked super glamorous and rather than pulling my curtains, just left me a shivering mess, exposed with boobs out.
I demanded to go home at 1am, then 2am. At 3am, someone came in to check my blood pressure, found it was too high (funny that) and said “oh we will take baby so you can get some rest, you must be anxious” even though EVERYTHING said I was not to be separated from the baby. My husband arrived at 8am, I was climbing the walls, in so much pain, cold, tired and I just wanted my baby back. Luckily as soon as he arrived, he sorted everything out and got me out of there by 9am.
We even called our local police station to let them know I had “absconded” from the hospital, due to the awful awful night I had had and was bringing my baby home, despite the staff not wanting me to. It’s horrific, you don’t get any rest in hospital at all.

This thread is 3 years old.

I sometimes get the sense that because there is some unavoidable noise - monitors, emergencies, babies crying - people give up on managing any noise or environmental factors.

I really think this is one thing that needs to be, and can be, sorted out in hospitals as a matter of urgency. Hospitals used to be able to manage it fgs! And it’s obvious that sleep is necessary for recovery.

This and returning to having visiting hours - especially in maternity wards - and nurses going back to being strict about how visitors behaved.

Hospitals should be places of rest and recovery.

Just seen that it’s an old thread but things definitely haven’t got any better in this respect!

My worst one was a another patient who was noisy all evening and then decided at 11:50pm that she was going to have a can of coke and eat a large bag of crisps while sat in her chair with her light on.
Everytime she put that damn can down she literally banged it on the table and she was so noisy munching on her crisps.

She then had the nerve the next morning to say that she couldn't sleep last night, she was dozing on her bed all morning. I'm afraid my pettiness got the better of me and every few mins I made sure to make a noise so she didn't get any rest either.

10000% YANBU i was in hospital once and very sick. The nurses sat in the nurses station laughing at full volume at 2am!! It was so fucking rude. I was 9 days with no sleep, limped out of bed and slammed the sliding door to my ward shut as a "fuck you!"

It is so unfair

I've spent quite a few times in the hospital over the years, from a couple of days to over 3 months, and most of the nurses have been great, but there was a time about 1:30 am when 2 female nurses had a blazing row in our ward. An elderly lady had been brought in about 11 pm; I'd say she was in her late 90s, and none of us could sleep because of the nurses shouting at each other. The elderly lady was terrified and started crying. I got out of bed, went to her, hugged her, and held her hand, and one of the nurses barked at me to get back into bed. I snapped at her ''NO. You're upsetting this lady, and your argument is stopping everyone else from sleeping''.

Other times, various nurses and orderlies have been incredibly noisy; some have come out with f-words and other foul language quite loudly, gossiping about their latest squeeze.

I have absolutely no objection to them having a laugh, but there's a limit!

I still remember housekeeping coming in at WTF o'clock and snapping the trash bags multiple times.

Tell me about it. I dread having to stay in hospital overnight because of this. Considering sleep is so important to people's recovery,you would think they'd have given guidelines about the acceptable level of noise. I could guarantee that if I started walking around the ward, shouting and banging doors at 2 in the morning,I'd be pulled up about pretty damn quick!