Since when did playing music through speakers be OK on a hospital ward?

I agree hospital wards are not for recovery and dreadful for MH. As a nurse, I am always happy to speak with patients to ask them to turn down/off, most of us would, as we agre with you.

Not the same, but when my shift is over the silence feels so strange, sensory overload is awful.
However, some nurses are unwilling to ask patients, as have previously been met with a torrent of abuse and complaints.
The nurse in charge should have the confidence to have a word.

We are always told about noise at night but the days are often worse.
I hope your wife recovers and escapes soon.

I found the ward was already a cattle mart, when I went in to be induced (I made a lot of noise myself once I was in labour). The woman next to me was on the phone, night & day. Thank Christ, this was during COVID & there was no visitors!

However, BobbyBiscuits post tells us why the nurses don’t do anything about it. They are subject to abuse, attack & general unpleasantness while trying to do a difficult job. Hospitals can’t regulate who attends. My BIL is hospital security.

This - totally.

YANBU, OP. I'd say people's behaviour in public places has worsened considerably since COVID.

When I was in hospital last year I noticed it was the ones who played music and videos all day who were the first to complain when an alarm went off on anyone else's medical equipment.

People are just selfish. Mil was in hospital just before she died and the rude inconsiderate people on the wards were a sight to behold, the attitudes, the noise and the language was bad.

some people have no manners or consideration for others .

My dad was in the later stages of cancer and he been put in a ward at 6am after a very harrowing few hours. Another young man came in shortly afterwards, clearly in a lot of pain. I switched the big lights off (lights still on outside) so they could try and rest. Suddenly, cleaners came into the bay and continued to have a very loud (shouted), but utterly meaningless, conversation which started from several metres away outside the bay. I saw the utter despair in my dad’s face as yet another hospital admission meant having to cope with this type of behaviour from staff as well as patients.

I spoke to the women and asked them to please be quiet. To their credit, they were quiet after that, but how can they be just not realise that it is not appropriate to walk around shouting around seriously ill patients? The other young man thanked me for that too. During each hospital stay, my dad just began to give up. He refused to go into the hospice in the end because of the experiences he’d had in hospital.

My child was on a children’s ward and all the other beds let their kids watch and play endless games, all at full volume. My child and I both had headphones on and I was despairing at the noise. I was tempted to start a fund for ward headphones. People in hospital need rest, I am always amazed at others peoples selfishness.

hope your wife is ok

On the other side of the coin, I was on the ward for 5, weeks and nobody disturbed anyone, ever! And we all had tellies/ radios and some of us tablets as well. I think me and 2 others got told to go to sleep at midnight once as we were chatting away like schoolgirls, lol. It really depends on who you get stuck next to. And the hospital itself as well. The one I was in was one of the best in the country.

I despair. It's out of order to do that and disturb others' peace.

People are selfish cunts nowadays.

The nurses can’t be arsed dealing with it or are of the generation who don’t see it as a problem. It should be banned to play music/tv without earphones, and it would be easy enough for hospitals to make this a rule.

It beggars belief really.

I think I’d have to do this.

People are becoming so bloody selfish.

I was on a maternity ward amd a couolecwatched a film on laptop v loudly together at 3am

Didnt batter an eyelid

Hand out cheap headphones, cfs

Some people seem to require their own personal soundtrack - it’s incredibly selfish. I hope your wife is better soon.

I sat with my dying friend on a general ward - the noise was dreadful. The staff came in and put the TV on in the morning and it stayed on for most of the day. There was no consideration at all for her. They put curtains round her bed, and despite requests to move her, it was ignored. It went quieter about 1am. However another person I know discharged himself from the same hospital as the lights and TV were on all night. There's no point in complaining - you only add to the distress because no one gives a fuck

I have cancer and have spent quite a bit of time in hospital over the past nine months and unfortunately this is the norm. I had to buy noise cancelling headphones for my own sanity.

I was woken up in the middle of the night, about 3am, by what sounded like a talk show on a radio when I was in hospital last year.

I asked a nurse who came in to do obs, is there a radio on, can it be quieter, it's keeping me awake - she just said I think that's 'Sandra' she's watching a film (?!) pointed at a woman on the other side of the bay using her phone, no headphones, and walked off.

Her manner made it very clear she thought I was being unreasonable to even mention it. I was completely baffled that it was apparently considered ok.

I was visiting DH in the major trauma ward. Half the other patients were criminals who'd been stabbed. Constant phonecalls on speaker, from dawn til midnight, constant videos playing at full volume. Shouting, screaming, swearing, Dozens of insalubrious noisy visitors, literally not a second of silence. The nurses did not give a shit. DH became the hero of the ward by handing out earplugs. How they expect people to recover in this situation is a mystery.

I would take it further; PALS, ward manager. Find out the hospital’s complaints procedure. It’s disgusting, selfish, entitled behaviour. I hope your wife’s stay isn’t too long and she recovers quickly.

Because people are fucking self entitled. I was on a ward last year where one woman every day had her family turn up so they could all watch emmerdale together, and the raging racist woman next to her had her scummy son play clips from a NSFW and really un PC “comedy” show he had attended despite the fact there were little kids about.
but both of these women took huge offence at the woman with paranoid schizophrenia making any sort of noise when they wanted to go to sleep.

I understand why people don’t want confrontation- it’s so awkward just laying facing complete strangers when you are sick.

I’d escalate until either the racket was turned off or your wife was moved to a private side ward.

The ignorance of people fails to surprise me any more.