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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Nurses in uniform on public transport

187 replies

sea74 · 23/02/2011 23:33

This is something that makes me crazy.
They talk about nosocomial infections, millions of pounds are spent per year to supply hospitals with hand gel, and then on the way home, you see dozens of nurses on the tube, trains, buses, trams and buses wearing their own uniform from and to work!

Don't they know it should not wore before they arrive in the hospital?

Also midwives do that.

I just cant stand it! They really show they dont care!!!

OP posts:

SauvignonBlanche · 24/02/2011 12:22

Getting off the bus - fuck me, it's a wonder there has been an outbreak of the plague.

ENormaSnob · 24/02/2011 12:23

Where would you suggest they change?

Almost all the wards I have worked on do not have change facilities.

FluffyMuff · 24/02/2011 12:23

LOL @ Sauvignon

BaroqueAroundTheClock · 24/02/2011 12:25

Fluffy - what do you do with those being rushed into A&E? Do you strip them off and change them before treating them?

Allegrogirl · 24/02/2011 12:25

You are being unreasonable to assume it is because they don't care. My DH used to be a nurse and there are no changing rooms, showers or staff lockers at the major teaching hospital he used to work at. Staff handbags had to be left in the tiny staff break room behind the nurses station and thefts did occur. I hated having his dirty uniforms in our washing machines but he was only issued with four of them and the hospital laundry is over 40 miles away. Impossible to get them laundered when you're on a week of 12 hour night shifts. Scrubs would be the sensible option but the Trust can't afford to kit out several thousand staff all at once. This was one of the many reasons he chose to leave nursing.

If you don't like it then complain to the Trust they work for and say you would not choose to be treated there. If they lose patients over it then they will lose income.

mosschops30 · 24/02/2011 12:26

Tabu

In my unit we wear scrub style uniforms, there are no laundry facilities or changing facilities, no lockers to leave your belongings in either.
What would you like me to o, change in the corridor and leave my stuff on the floor until I leave?

Fwiw I always go straight home after a shift, I take my crocs of before I get in the house and then strip in the kitchen and my uniform goes straight in the wash.

The only place I have worked with laundered uniforms was theatre and they used to leave them in the basement corridor with cats sleeping on them .... Lovely

Rosa · 24/02/2011 12:42

YANBU - however I think its digusting that staff don't have a locker or place to change - Even a lock up store cupboard for their use. Mind you in this day and age no point in asking as there will be no funds......

CrispyCakeHead · 24/02/2011 12:42

can I ask why a couple of you don't like the dirty nurses uniforms in your washing machine? What do you think will happen? germs getting transferred mid cycle to your clothes? Aren't they in there precisely to remove dirt and germs?

MsFaithless · 24/02/2011 12:44

Ok so as others have said you have to wash and iron your uniform at home. This would mean taking your uniform on public transport on a hanger (has to be neat/well ironed or will result in a discliplinary matter) and presumably contained in sterile plastic?

Firstly how on earth are you going to manage that on commuter rush hour public transport and secondly where are you going to change when you get there when there are no facilities? It's impossible.

FWIW most Doc's outside of surgery/A&E (and some in them) don't wear scrubs just standard office gear. No one seems to mind about that. I guess no one notices.

Just think about what your Dr's tie has seen since it was last laundered...

ENormaSnob · 24/02/2011 12:45

So come on op, where should they get changed?

MsFaithless · 24/02/2011 12:46

Crispy - I don't get the ick factor in washing uniforms in the machine either

GabbyLoggon · 24/02/2011 12:48

Ever see any nurses out of uniform on public transport. It was a students ball "Gabby"

gramercy · 24/02/2011 12:50

When I had the dcs the nurses all looked smart and clean... apart from their manky old cardigans.

They all wore their own navy blue cardigans and I wonder how often these got washed?

This was the "One Born Every Minute" hospital, btw.

supersalstrawberry · 24/02/2011 13:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

unfitmother · 24/02/2011 13:07

"millions of pounds are spent per year to supply hospitals with hand gel"

Is this something to do with the fact that research has shown that good hand hygiene is the singlemost most important means of preventing the spread of infection?

Obviously OP knows better, it's not allowing your uniform out of the hospital door.

Rebeccaruby · 24/02/2011 13:18

YAB a bit U. If nurses need to wash their uniforms at home they will wear them home. Also, there are many nursing roles like physiotherapy; mental health; occupational therapy; working in rehab with people like alcoholics or people with eating disorders; and dispensing, where they might wear uniforms but the patients don't need a particularly clinical environment.

The nurse in my local doctors' practice wears her uniform to work, which I have no problems with; I wouldn't expect the doctors not to arrive in their suits . And what about maternity? OK this might be important in a special care baby unit, but in a normal ward where every Tom, Dick and Harry is coming in to hug and kiss the new baby, having just got off public transport?

Then there are people who have nurse-type uniforms like beauticians; dental hygienists; even some pharmacists. Some veterinary nurses wear uniforms.

OK, if they are working on a ward with cancer patients who have lowered immunity, or they've come from assisting at surgery you might have a point.

Otherwise I wouldn't stress.

NickL · 24/02/2011 13:33

What about the doctors who insist on wearing "civvies" when on the wards?

FluffyMuff · 24/02/2011 13:48

Baroque I was being sarcastic

TwoIfBySea · 24/02/2011 14:00

Back when I was in nurse training one of the first things we were told was to not wear our uniform outside the workplace. As I biked to work it would have been a bit uncomfortable anyway.

But we did have lockers to keep our uniform.

A lot of my friends who are still in nursing say it is a way of showing off to people. They get really ticked off about it.

iamabadger · 24/02/2011 14:06

If I'm doing an invasive or dirty procedure i wear an apron, it's a bit silly to assume that we rub our uniforms against all sorts and then wander about in them! My mum is also a nurse, and when we were little and she had to be at work for 07.00 it was impossible for her to get us all ready, and get to work even earlier than that so she could change! Personally I walk home in uniform in winter as my big coat covers my uniform. My trust's infection control team actually state that research has shown uniforms don't spread infection, but the public perception that it does means that many hospitals make the rule anyway so they don't get bombarded with complaints about it! We have a changing room, but the layout is such that if anyone opens the door you are revealed in all your glory to anyone who might be wandering past, this is beyond the line of duty in my eyes thanks!

FluffyMuff · 24/02/2011 14:10

A lot of my friends who are still in nursing say it is a way of showing off to people. They get really ticked off about it.

Showing off about what exactly? The lack of changing facilities at work?

I do think there are some that like to show off, but I tend to think they are in the minority and 'that' type of person IYGWIM.

A few examples that spring to mind (from experience) a PCSO telling people they are a police officer (when off duty); a care assistant passing themselves off as a nurse (she lives in my street and it really pisses me off). Both roles important in their own right, why try and big them up - if you're that hung up on 'status' train to do the job that you're pretending to do!

I think it's that kind of personality that would be the one to do their shopping in their uniform.

TheBolter · 24/02/2011 14:12

YANBU, I know three people who work in vet's surgeries and they often do the school pick up in their scrubs. I always find myself thinking, 'eurgh'.

I also saw a nurse in the supermarket the other day and couldn't help thinking that she shouldn't be around food.

unfitmother · 24/02/2011 14:13

Our Infection Control team's advice if that you stop at a shop take your name badge off.
The only danger is to the blood pressure of the ignorant DM readers who get het up about it.
This is in a Trust with an exceptionally low infection rate, BTW.

TheBolter · 24/02/2011 14:14

Sorry, that was a nurse in uniform... not saying that nurses shouldn't be around food!

My friend is a Sister on an ICU and is absolutely enraged whenever she sees uniforms being worn in public!

belgo · 24/02/2011 14:14

at a nurse not being allowed around as food. You do know in hospital nurses are expected to dish up food and feed the patients?

YABU for the simple reason that I do not know any UK hospital that has sufficient changing rooms for nurses.

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