to expect nurses to care?

[gremlindolphin]

My mum is in hospital at the moment, has been for a while and will be for some time too.

There are some really lovely nurses who have gone out of their way to care and treat mum as an individual, learnt the names of her family etc but I really feel that there are a proportion who just don't care.

I was sat with mum today while one of the nurses laughed behind the door at the confused rubbish one of the other old ladies was saying.

I have heard nurses on several occasions say be quite cross and short with patients ringing for the toilet etc and yesterday when mum wanted the toilet the nurse said "we're really busy just do it in the bed if you can't wait".

They often come sweeping into the ward saying "hope you lot are going to behave yourselves tonight etc" it feels so disrespectful.

Sounds like the hospital my mother has just been moved from. Do you want the number for her solicitor?
They should care, sadly it's very lacking in some hospitals. My mother was seen as mad when she had an infection, the infection was missed and they discharged her, sending a mental health crisis doctor to her home. He picked up the infection right away, sadly she fell at home and smashed her femur before the antibiotics could work. I really do feel your frustration.

can you complain to pals is it?

That's awful gremlin, I would put in a complaint, is there any chance you can transfer to a differen hospital?

i work for the nhs and i would advise you to contact PALS.

www.pals.nhs.uk/

i hope you mum get well soon xxxxx

thanks fluffybunny, oh thats not good.

Mum has had an infection that was nearly missed as the reason for being in hospital was to have a brain tumour removed. the op went well and she came round well and then about a week later she started getting really sleepy and confused and they just kept saying it was because of the op but then eventually realised she had a urinary infection.

I worry about all the people who don't have people to fight for them in the system.

so sad. I used to be a psychiatric nurse and left due to people like that. I was in hospital a few yrs ago and an old lady repeatedly asked for help to go to bed. It was handover time and they kept on fobbing her off.In the end after an hour i did it myself after dragging my drip stand over to her bed. They never even queried it, Yes complain , they have a duty of care and shouldnt be bloody nurses if they have no compassion or concern for dignity! I am mad now.

How stressful for you. I really do hope she's on the mend soon. You should complain and shout! Be on their case all the time, keep notes (dates/comments/names/problems).

I had to email the chief executive to get her put on a drip as they just left her in a side room away from the ward when she was too dehydrated to feed herself. It's not a good feeling to have to fight like this, it's worrying enough to have a loved one unwell without all the crap.

I have been to PALS once and they were excellent and sorted out something else instantly. I'll see how it goes. She is due to be transferred to a specialist rehab centre soon anyway.

You do get lulled into a false sense of "they are trying their best, don't complain about everything' but the doing it in the bed suggestion was particularly grim.

or even better i would record it and give it to the bbc

A uti in the elderly is the most common cause for a decline in phyysical and mental wellbeing. It should have been screened on admission.

You can ask to see soemone and explain that it isn't nice to have this type of behaviour on the ward.

Write doen the points you want to raise and get on and say that and aks them to deal with it and put things right.

Or ask if your mother can be moved to another ward

I had my grandmother on one ward and did speak as the medicine trollet was being left in the ward unattended and the patients were not being taken to the toilet and my grandmother wasn't drinking so she didn't need the loo - but was desorintated as she was dehaydrated which was why she had gone in in the first place..the food was ordered the night before was not being given - so again I made sure I wa there for tea time - and they tryed it on, but a gentle firm no that wasn't what I ticvked for my gran last night

but I spoke up and made a fuss without the bother

gran was discharged and then went back in and went on the next ward - couldn't have been more helpful and careing and different from the ward next door

It may be how the whole shifts are set up and how they gel together - say soemthing firmly without bother - but make the fuss

thats interesting ledkr because I think she had it when she was admitted to this hospital.

It cleared up pretty quickly once they spotted it but she has had another "mystery" infection since and now has a chest infection.

Another thing that drives me mad is that windows are always shut incase the patients get cold - fresh air would make such a difference.

I would just like to pick her up and bring her home but I can't.

Does anyone know whether when this infection cleared up if I took her out to a private nursing home to wait for the place in the (nhs) rehab centre if that would jeapodise her place there? Apart from the hospital acquired infections there is no medical reason for her to be in hospital except for not being able to move one side of her body (a result of the brain op)?

Going to bed now! Thanks for all your thoughts. I'll check back in the morning. x

totally agree with op

had alot to do with nurses etc over the last few years and at first was horrified as thats just not what we think of nurses

sadly your experience is very common

Sorry but just had a thought, constipation can also cause some strange symptoms not unlike dementia.All you ladies with elderly realatives be aware.

PALS is a great idea, why don't you ask one of the ward sister's "excuse me could you tell me how I go about contacting PALS" I bet things would change pretty quickly!

So sad when bad care is given, gives such a bad name to the good nurses.

My great aunt was in hospital a few years ago (fractured hip) she was 92, had very bad eyesite and they kept moving her to different wards when they needed her bed so the poor thing didn't have a clue where she was. One time they told her she was moving, packed all her things up (including her glasses - they said they might get damaged on the journey???????) and then there was a hold up so she sat in a wheelchair unable to see for 3 hours. Total disrepect.

Hope your mum gets better soon
x

YANBU. Do contact PALS. I work in the NHS and know what a valuable job they do and what impact their involvement can have.

One of my friends recently had to stay in hospital after her appendix burst. Years earlier she had been Sister on that very same ward and she was appalled at the nursing to the point that she put in a complaint.

I wonder if, now all nursing is degree entry, we are getting a higher proportion of nurses who are well qualified in theory but don't really do well on the practical care. Thank God for the good ones!

My mum complained about the care of the elderly woman in the bed opposite her when she was recovering from a mastectomy. It took a lot for her to do it though as she felt very vulnerable and worried about annoying the people who were responsible for her well-being.

The nurses were lovely to my mum but she witnessed completely different behaviour towards this woman who had some dementia and no family visiting (on top of the breast cancer, poor soul).

More recently, my grandmother was labelled a trouble maker for wanting to go to the toilet too often at night by one particular nurse. Again, my mum complained but again, she felt very worried that she was potentially creating more trouble for my gran - the elderly are in a vulnerable position, particularly as in this case the nurse was trying to say that my gran was confused and lying about her treatment. Luckily another member of staff reported that the nights she was on shift my gran's "confusion" was remarkably absent .

This isn't nurse-bashing by the way, but some people are obiously not suited to the job/burnt out/suffering from compassion-fatigue and I do worry for those who have noone to stand up for them.

My dear mother was in critical care after surgery for bowel cancer. When she was conscious talking to my dad, a nurse came in and stabbed an injection into her arm without so much as a by your leave. It made her shriek in pain. My dad was so angry. He told the nurse to bloody well speak to patients before sticking a needle in their arm. During her stAy she also told me she was assaulted by a male patient on same ward. Nurses told me she was imagining it. I am still so angry. She died 4 years ago.

Sorry to hear about bad experiences. Am a staff nurse + happily my ward has a good reputation and most of my colleagues work very hard. In my career i've met some uncaring nurses - the reasons for their attitude are complex but personally i believe that we should treat patients as we would want our relatives to be treated. It can be very frustrating though when you are short staffed and so busy that you lie awake thinking of how you could have given better care if only there was time - you have to develop a thick skin to cope with the guilt + stress, or you burn out. A good nurse should be able to do this while retaining their sense of empathy.
As for acute confusion - this can have many causes, some are hard to recognise even for senior medics! On my surgical ward many post op patients get confused due to: anaesthetic, analgesia, new or pre-admission infections (UTIs, chest infections), anaemia, low sodium, disorientation, etc etc. Often older people living alone have mild dementia, mental health issues or alcohol dependency which haven't been recognised by their family prior to admission.
My tips are: if you have concerns over treatment or diagnosis then phone the hospital switchboard, ask for the consultant's secretary and make an appointment. Also speak to the ward manager - if your relative needs feeding then offer to help with this and personal care if you have time. Most nurses will be very grateful. Be assertive but pleasant and polite. Hope that may help.

I trained as a nurse when the training was largely ward-based - before the degree nursing became the only way to qualify, and I believe that we were far better trained in the practical skills involved in nursing and caring for patients than degree nurses are.

We also learned to take responsibility at a very early stage in our training, whereas degree nurses are supernumary until they qualify, so don't have to take responsibility in the same way.

I have met up with the nurses I trained with at our reunions, and many are still in nursing, and all have some horror stories to tell about degree nurses - nurses about to qualify who are unwilling to do an intramuscular injection because they have done it so infrequently, or a child being left following an appendicectomy without any sort of mouth care (keeping the mouth clean and moist if the patient is nil by mouth) so that when his mother (my ex colleague) came back in in the morning, his lips were stuck together and bled when he opened his mouth.

When I was a student nurse, I was responsible for the feeding and personal care of the patients allocated to me. I had to assess whether they were able to care for themselves/feed themselves, and if they couldn't, I had to make sure they got that care - and I would have been held responsible if they hadn't received the care they needed - and that would have meant facing the ward sister - a fate worse than death in some cases! On none of the wards where I worked would it have been neccessary for a patient's relatives to bathe or feed them - something which I assume is now neccessary, as Lara says, because of the lack of staff on the wards.

I have said something along the lines of 'I hope you are going to behave tonight' to patients on a night shift - but only when I knew the patients and knew that they would appreciate it as a jokey comment, as it was intended. Sadly it doesn't sound as if that was the case for the person earlier on this thread.

It's not necessary for relatives to bathe or feed patients on our ward - we do it anyway because thats our job and we enjoy it (and we have all been to uni cos you have to now - many of us were a HCA first). We prefer to do personal care cos that's a way of assessing skin integrity, pain, continence etc. It's just that relatives like to help (very occasionally) and we let them as it helps them to feel involved and less powerless.
Also i find younger nurses very caring and nice to work with.

To SDTGirl - if your friends have lots of experience they should try sharing it with the newer nurses instead of bitching about them. Sadly i find there's as much rivalry / bitching among nurses as in any other workplace :(.

have you spoken to the ward manager? if not i would and also 2nd going to pals if the ward manager doesnt sort it

Sorry SDTG. I really hate reading all this 'old school proper nurses V degree trained incompetent pretend nurses' crap.

How you enter nursing should not have any impact at all on your ability to care and be a good nurse.

Your friends that share their horror stories with you would know that a student nurse has to be mentored by a qualified nurse throughout the course, if one has reached NQ status and has not had the opportunities to deliver those methods of care, then it says a lot about who is mentoring them. Why do old school nurses find it so hard to offer/share advice???

It doesnt/shouldnt matter how you have entered nursing. There are no modules that teach you about compassion, respect or care. These are qualities that every nurse should have anyway.

I am a degree trained nurse and find it insulting when its suggested that for this reason alone, I cant be as good as a nurse who trained 20 years ago. A fair few of my older colleagues would still have patients restrained to chairs and washed down with hose pipes each morning given the chance. (Im in MH btw)

My nan was told to mess herself in the bed and told off when she cried because she didn't want to. Her food was left out of reach. She was never washed. She was bruised by rough treatment. She contracted every hospital acquired bug going. She was spoken to like rubbish. She had mildew growing under her false teeth. When this was eventually spotted (by family) they cleaned her mouth but lost her teeth - but they still gave her hard food (still out of reach)

I could write 20 pages of the mistreatment my nan suffered.

PALS were (and still are) USELESS !!

They work for the hospital, don't forget this.

We have been waiting 3 years now for an explanation and apology but they can't find the records!!

Whatever you do NEVER EVER take a loved one to West Middlesex Hospital.