to think SOME nurses are in the wrong profession.

[pink1978]

Prompted by an incident where a relative with a really bad fracture overheard a conversation along the lines of. "If she like that with pain relief" In fact pain relief wasn't working.
There have also been lots of other incidents with other people I know and things I have witnessed on the wards with other patients.

I'm a nurse and i think OP's views apply to most professions. I love my job and the abuse we get from patients is unreal sometimes.

Please don't tar us all with the same brush.

I've had more than enough time in hospitals dealing with DS's affairs to last me a life time.

During that time we have encountered every type of nurse (and doctor) possible and the majority of them do a decent job. They aren't saints, they just work in caring capacity, as do many Carers all over the country.

The type of nurse you get is also dependent on the type of ethos of the hospital they are working in. We know of a local hospital that I would avoid taking DS to, due to the way nurses treat the parents. Luckily our mainstay hospital is beyond fabulous. The nurses are very good at listening to our concerns, and dealing with us as a family, instead of DS as a number. Ironically, our hospital won't hire any nurses from the other hospital due to poor standards of training.

But generally medics are good (very good in fact), just don't be afraid to question any treatment you receive.

The issue though is that terrible nurses and other medics can kill you with poor care or make your recovery traumatic or longer. Yes there are crap people in every job, but some jobs have much more impact on people than others. If your plane crashed because the pilot was incompetent you wouldn't be saying - well there is crap in every profession. You would be saying that an incompetent pilot shouldn't be flying.

I think it is reasonable to expect a higher standard of professionalism from some jobs such as nurses, Dr's, pilots, etc.

And although people complain about crap nurses, they are also quick to acknowledge great nurses - and other medics.

OP, YANBU. The idea that we should accept that nurses might not be good at their job, in the same way that any other employee might be poor, is, IMO, ridiculous.

Nurses are there for people who are at a vulnerable point in their lives. Often in pain, frightened etc. It is not acceptable for any member of a caring profession to cause further anxiety and upset with poor attitude.

I will never forget visiting my dad in hospital a few years back. The old and immobile man in the bed next to him was desperate for a bottle. He rang and rang the buzzer thingy. Despite being at the nurses station, all the nurses ignored him. Eventually, when he was almost crying, he asked me if I could fetch one of them to help him. I asked the nurses for help and do you know what they said? They told me to tell him to just 'do it in the bed and we'll clean up later'. How cruel to say that to a man who was in his 80's! but the worst thing? By the time I got back to him, the poor sod had done it because he just couldn't hold it anymore. He was still there, lying in his own piss half an hour later. I went to the nurses station and asked them if they could come to help him as by now he was distraught. And one of them turned around and told me she hadn;t completed a nursing degree to clean up somebody else's piss!

They may have been tired, they may have been fed up, they may have worked a long shift that day. But that is their job. The one they chose to do. One which the dictionary defines as ; 1. A person educated and trained to care for the sick or disabled. I saw no evidence of care towards that old man. And whilst that is the worst example, I have seen many other examples of poor nurses over the last few years. And do you know what? Actually, I don't care how tired you are, how put upon you feel: If you can't show basic human compassion to a vulnerable person, young, old, whatever, then don't become a nurse.

And one of them turned around and told me she hadn;t completed a nursing degree to clean up somebody else's piss! Really? Did this actually happen?

I have been in the trade for 17 years and never worked with a single nurse who would behave as described in your post.

Also, where do all these nurses work where they all stand around gossiping at the stations because I'm usually usually lucky if my backside hits a seat during an entire shift, and that includes my lunch break.

YANBU, I knew a woman who worked on high dependency paediatric ward and she was the most unsympathetic, nasty piece of work I have ever met, the patients and parents were second fiddle to whether she got her way. Bloody nightmare. However, the majority put caring first.

stinky- I always seem to get those nurses!
"this isn't what I went to uni for..." is a classic.
"well you are hca, there is 3 bottles waiting for you"

To all those trained nurses reading this, I'm a health care assistant! Not your personal slave. I'm there to help, not to do all the dirty work.

Lw

I feel weary defending my profession against the awful representations in the media, I don't want to have to defend it against colleagues too. Please don't turn this into an RN / HCSW battle.

It really isn't a nice job to do at the minute, we get a bashing every day and most of us really don't deserve it. I work with a great team.

the op is right tho, SOME nurses, are in the wrong profession.

I have never met many nice ones at my local hospital, which is an awful thing to say, but that's my experience. If I have encountered a nice one, I have made sure I have expressed my thanks.

Same thing anywhere with any profession.

Actually having a sone who spent at least half of his first 5 years of life in one hospital or another, I entirely agree with OP.

In response to those saying that we are ready to criticise, yes you are right. If someone is unprofessional or ust crap I do complain. I believe it is important to do this in order to prevent some real disasters from happening to patients who are unable to speak up for themselves. I also do not accept the,'they are only human' comment. They are paid to do a professional job. If they are struggling at any given point then they need to speak to superior and ask for a break/take time off sick/change career etc.

However over the years I have also written many letters praising the people who have cared for my son when he was really ill.

In both instances I send these to the Chair or chief exec of the NHS board I (copy to the persons I'm talking about) so that those at the top know that people are doing a good job, just as they need to know when someone in incompetent.

YANBU OP, I have sadly had more bad experiences than good, with hospital staff in general.

My nan was in hospital for a long while with Non Hodgkins Lymphoma. She was very weak and could not get out of bed unaided, one evening she needed the toilet and was using the call button as she'd been instructed to. for over an hour she was ignored so attempted to get out of the bed herself, as a result to fell on the floor, badly bruising her hip and side, she also relieved herself on the floor as she could hold it no longer (Chemo sometimes causes loose bowel movements as a side effect). She lay on the floor for around 10 minutes before a nurse came over to see what the fuss was (other lady on the ward saw it all and repeatedly pressed the call button to get attention).
The nurse tutted then 'told off' my Nan for making a mess!

I was fuming and launched a complaint against the nurse, but nothing really came of it other than a letter to say staff were 'very busy'. Disgusting behaviour imo.

The midwives on the post natal ward at the hospital when I had DD were also appalling, rude, obtuse, extremely loud (laughing, shrieking at each other down the corridors etc) all hours of the day and night and unhelpful. The only nice staff member was an auxillary nurse and a consultant I saw.

I have no doubt there are some very good staff on board at the NHS, but in my experience there are just not enough good 'uns!

Have met some lovely ones in my life but also some terrible ones. My mum had a stroke earlier in the year and her treatment was terrible
I cant sing the praises of dh macmillan nurses enough though.
I always find that nurses are alot better with the patients that are kind and understanding to them than the ones that treat them like dirt. I remember having a doctor comment to a nurse "how nice that lovely lady in room xx was" and nurse agreeing. It was me I was very unwell but still never a good reason to be rid to those trying to help.

I also found nurses that have come from other countries have a different way of treating patients, and can come over as uncaring. I'm not saying all are like that, just the ones I have met.

Hi Im a nurse (have been for 12 years), I personally always aim to treat people as I would like myself or my family to be treated.
I would just like to point out that we regularly get verbally abused and several colleagues have been physically assaulted in the past, (to the point of ending up in A+E with fractures and head injuries).

Whilst I am not defending those who let the profession down, I would just like to say I have seen a huge increase in agression and abuse from patients, but also (and more noticably) from relatives.
Statistically a nurse is 6....yes 6 times more likely to be assaulted than a police officer, while we are dealing with behaviour like this we are being kept from doing our jobs as our jobs should be (actually providing nursing care).

I would just like to add that I dont even mind abuse from patients who for whatever reason are unaware of their actions because of their illness etc, I do however draw the line at recieving abuse from agressive and unreasonable patients and relatives.

I do agree that people have bad days and there are people who are crap in every profession - but shopworks and electricians aren't dealing with people at potentially the most vunurable point in their lives.

If you are someone that can't handle their bad days, then get into a job that doesn't involve caring for someone.

When I was having DS, there was only one nice midwife out of the 20 or so I saw over the 7 days I was in hospital. One midwife took my gas and air off me because she said I was becoming delirious - actually he was lying on a nerve in my back and I couldn't even feel the pain of contractions my back was so excruciating and after an hour of leaving me like that I passed out and ended up in theatre!

anyone who disrespects or abuses a member of nursing staff is wrong to do so.
I can only imagine some of the shit hospital staff have to put up with.

It's those nurses and hospital staff who are just plain nasty, uncaring and 'above you' that I think most on here are upset with.

The ones who are belittling and think they are god. grrrr

Yanbu op. I'm a nurse and I love it most days
I had a career change coming into.nursing and it definitely suits me. There really are some fantastic nurses out there suited to their careers. Objectively even some who I don't click with on a personal level, I can see they have a good rapport with their patients.
There are some nurses who I think came into nursing because they thought they'd like it or had some romantic notion about what it would be like. They get so far into it they don't feel they can quit but actually they don't like doing it. It's not the kind of job where you can hide in am office, you have to 'perform' and be positive with patients even if you're miserable. Not everyone can do that.
I started to struggle on the ward but found a specialist role. But you do have to have the bottle to make that change if you're unhappy easier said than done

Unfortunately I have spent more time in hospitals that I would have liked to have. I have met great consultants, Drs and nurses and some terrible ones.

Yes some nurses are very busy and overworked, but some are just plain rude. IME this is often to elderly confused patients. Yes it must be frustrating dealing with elderly patients who are confused and keep asking things like when are they going home to mum and dad or where are they. But being rude and sometimes outright belittling is not an appropriate response no matter how busy you are.

I work with "challenging" families, so I know first hand how shitty some people can be. But the instances that have shocked me actually involved elderly vulnerable patients - not nightmare individuals.

Also there are some things that I don't think is acceptable that seem almost routine. For example, nursing staff laughing and joking loudly at the nursing station in the middle of the night while patients are trying to sleep. Or nursing staff moving a patient, making a bed etc, totally ignoring the patient and instead chatting to each other about non medical stuff over the prone body of a patient.

StinkyWeimaraner, you seem to doubt that I am telling the truth about a particular incident. I can assure you that is exactly what was said. It was nbot the only incident of appalling attitude that I witnessed during that period. My Dad was in hospital for five weeks. sadly, as others have also said, I do think that the nurses on that particular ward thought it was ok to be so nasty because the ward was one of elderly people, many of whom were confused and in pain. If you are at all interested, I will PM you the name of the hospital concerned. The hospital is actually no longer there now, but sadly the new ' all singing, all dancing hospital that replaced it is one which is currently in the news purely because of its appalling record of patient care. So maybe it is a problem just with our local staff?

When I was training to be a mh nurse I did a placement on a general ward, one of the patients was in his 70s couldn't walk very well, had a carer at home to do his shopping, didn't have any family and was quite confused at some points.

The hca's were trying to get him to change his clothes and have a wash but he was getting quite aggressive with the way they were rushing him. I asked if I could see if he'd let me help him ( had 10 years Experiance working with the elderly in nursing homes)

I spent a long time chatting with him, helping him wash, shave and change his clothes. He'd been in the same ones for 3 days and was covered in urine and faeces

Half an hour later the head nurse discharged him, she shouted at him for not telling her he needed an ambulance booking and shouted at him for not having any spare clean clothes demanding to know why his family hadn't bought him spare ones in.

She told me to help him put his clothes back on, I refused and told her what state they were in , even his shoes had faeces over them. She didn't give a shit and got someone else to put them back on him.

Why the fuck he couldn't have gone home in the hospital pjs I don't know, it still upsets me thinking about it now.

I work with nurses and just like any profession you get your good and you get your bastards, however if you have had a bad day you tend to take it out on the people you work alongside.... unfortuanatly in this caase its the patients especially in psychiatrics.
ARSE HOLES!

moominsarescary - Thats awful! Poor man. And nothing to do with nurses being overworked.

stinky I'll name & shame a well- known West London hospital. My son was there for 3 days, during which time I helped other parents find mattresses/sheets for their children as they arrived because no one else did. Son had his tests; we waited ages to be told we could leave, during which time the staff larked about whilst the records of a vulnerable patient were left lying open for me to read.

When I shoved the file back across the desk & suggested that something as sensitive as a child being removed from it's parents should not be open to general view I was asked if I'd like to comment on the treatment of the 'at risk' child as the family were known to the police. Not my job surely,

One thing I'd say that is said quite a lot in the NHS is that most nurses don't come to work planning to do a bad job. There are some awful people in nursing just like any profession but because nursing is a caring profession, those who are unprofessional are understandably judged more harshly.
Most nurses have the best intentions but when we do slip up - because we're human - it's worse than slipping up in most professions.

No the nurses were defenatly not over worked, the hca's were very over worked and understaffed. The main problem I found was they didn't understand dementia and how it affects a person.

Just because one minute your having a conversation with someone doesn't mean that when you reel off the lunch menu to them and they don't answer you that they are just being ignorant and obviously don't want food, it means you've thrown too much information at them and their brain hasn't been able to take it all in. I got sick if telling them.

I have met some nurses who are kind and caring, but they worked in a hospice. The nurses in my local hospitals have been, almost without exception, generally uncaring. We once took my mother home from hospital barly hours after an operation because she was too frightened to stay on the ward. It was a mixed sex ward so my (modest) mother was too embarassed to go to the toilet, it was also filthy with blood-stained bandanges and pads on the floor and it was like a corridor with people constantly walking through talking loudly. On another occasion, in another hospital, she was drowsy but talking to my father when a nurse stabbed her arm with an injection completely unexpectedly. It made her scream with fright. My father was furious and told the nurse never to treat a patient like that again - he was told to leave or security would remove him! God, I have so many similar stories which make me feel furious, and of course, it is very hard to complain because then you have the worry that your loved one will be mistreated when you're not there. I too have seen many times over the years nurses standing around talking and being annoyed when patients or their relatives interrupt. For years there was this view of nurses as being 'angels'. I am sure some are but there's a whole lot of them who should not be allowed to work with patients.