Nurses eating on shift...

[PatsyAndEddy]

Just back from hospital visiting a friend who had her tonsils out today. She had to fast from 10 pm last night and didn't get taken for her op until 2pm, that's a long time without food for anyone!

She missed dinner on the ward but they got her a sandwich but she's really sore and hungry!

On the ward her bed is right next to the nurses station. She said they were sitting munching on a large bag of kettle chips in front of her between the three of them. She commented on how she thought that was a but mean, they snapped back saying 'well we have to eat' at which point my friend reminded them that's what they're breaks were for.

I don't think she's flavour of the month in the ward! She can be a bit of a grump at the best of times but starving, sore and groggy I think she reached her limit!

We're the nurses being unreasonable, eating on shift?

"Actually I think there are many many more people who went into the job for the purest of motives , who have found that since they joined , their career has been changed for them without any consultation , they've been hit with a myriad of different and usually unworkable ideas from a variety of ok to diabolical governments , resulting in a raft of unmatchable targets . Which in turn causes stress , aggravation , and then on top of that, they then get paid less , for doing more work, for longer , and are expected to sacrifice their family life, and their health both physical and mental , and yet be grateful that they have a job at all , and must remain unfailingly caring and polite despite having to deal with an over entitled society that seems to care much more about their rights than their responsibilities .

If people think they can do better , and its such a easy number , then join up ! Nursing numbers are falling , and going to continue to do so . Join the arrays of kettle chip munchers . Do it for a year or two full time . Then come back and tell us how you revolutionised the NHS from within .

Good luck with that"

^this

is the best comment I have read on mnet in a long time.

Impure motives?

And what are they exactly? Certainly not thanks or the wages. I don't think anyone entering nursing for some kind of 'impure motives' would last through the training never mind a proper job.

If I really didn't care I'd go off for lunch at 12:30 every shift, leaving patients unable to feed themselves to go hungry, lunchtime medication not given and critically ill patients left uncared for till I had eaten.

wharrgarble is it not true then?

Doesn't impure motives kind of imply people became nurses purely and only to torment people?

Seems a tad dramatic to think many nurses got into their profession rubbing their palms and laughing maliciously about all the Hell they intend to unleash...

Plomino brilliant post.

I cannot imagine many nurses working upto age 65.
Speaking as a 60 year old my energy levels have declined noticeably during the last 5 years.
There is no way I could do a 12 hour nurses shift.

The last time I didn't eat for 8 hours I started vomiting and got a migraine.

I am a fit, slim healthy woman with no health problems (except needing to eat every three hours).

Maybe Married will change the world!

Sorry.....It was America I was meaning.

married the cashier st the bank gets proper breaks as does the person on checkouts. Sorry but you really are being insulting and insensitive here. A couple of bad experiences with nurses does not make you an expert on all of them. We can all recite a few bad experiences about lots of services we use. Listen to what the bigger picture is here from what the nurses are saying.

It all went wrong when nurses stopped being married to the profession like nuns, and started y'know? Having lives outside of it. How very dare they? Don't they know it's a vocation?

During my time as a nurse, I have been reduced to tears by truly hateful and personal comments, smacked, scratched, bitten and hit. (Once with a false leg, yes really), I have been spat at in my face and been the subject of sexual innuendo/inappropriate touching of my bottom etc. All while I am trying to do my job.
It comes with the territory, I'd bet a million pounds that most nurses on this thread have experienced similar.

It must be cos I'm so impure...

Anyway, 'Kettle Chip munchers' makes a change from the DM stance of 'Feckless, Hateful, Unhygienic, Biscuit Munchers'.

I'd actually like to know that other than be mortally offended at the sight of a gang of nurses sharing a bag of kettle chips, if there was any other grave cause for concern regarding the care that she received??

The nurses in the OP weren't hovering over patient's beds eating - they were doing so at the nurses station. If they were waving around bags of crisps while giving a nil by mouth patient a bed bath then MarriedinWhite's rather fatuous analogy re cashiers/checkout staff might stack up.

As to why Nursing staff can't use patient toilets - erm infection control?

The NHS/hospitals run on a lot of good will. I bet if nurses left the ward to take scheduled breaks there would be even more moaning.

As to printing off this thread and sending it to the RCN/an MP - that's one of the most ridiculous things I've read on the web ever.

Gah I don't know why I'm letting this bug me so much. As for good ol' Florence spinning in her grave you must be joking right?!

The NHS is a wonderful thing but it is run on the good will of workers. If an operating list is over-running we rely on theatre staff staying back to allow us to continue. If they all said no we'd have to stop operating much earlier to avoid the risk of running late so that's at least one less op being done. But they do stay with little chance of actually getting back their time owing. Nurses on the ward stay late to do paperwork so that they have enough time to diver the care that they went into nursing for.

Who picks nursing as an easy option? I certainly know of doctors who went into medicine for dubious reasons (forced into by parents, money, respect) but nursing? I couldn't be a nurse for love nor money.

I'm not a nurse and this thread bothers me a huge deal. OP is callous about nurses (didn't even question if cuntmate was unreasonable to lecture people how to do their job) And other posters have shown the... Well IMHO, virtual contempt they have for nurses.

I don't even know anyone who is a nurse and this thread makes me wuite queasy.

Your overuse of the word cunt makes me queasy, can't win them all

Your general prejudice and passive aggressive crap makes me queasy, but like you said, you can't expect everyone to agree with you. That's life.

To what am I prejudiced against?

You're rather disproportionate really. Is that the way you approach everything in life? Can't be good for you, all that rage and aggression over an internet thread.

I couldn't be a nurse.
I couldn't have cleaned the poo off my Dad (even if he wasn't my Dad) when he was dying in hospital.

I would want to bed bath men & women's genitals.

I wouldn't want to change dressings on stinking, festering cancers.

I think nurses do a fantastic job and their working conditions are often appalling.

Modern science has created so many treatments and operations for illnesses that were previously untreatable.

But with this we have the madness of an elderly dying man put on The Pathway and at the same time having antibiotics for a chest infection.

Well, your attitude towards MH got you deleted and your attitude towards nurses isn't pleasant. Your PA posts to those who disagree isn't nice. At least I've told you exactly how I feel, even if you think I'm some sort of fire breathing rageball. Of course, everyone is welcome to their opinion, so if that's how you see me? Well, your choice, your right. >Shrug<

Not rage and aggression (aggression? ) over an internet thread. Mainly just tired and frustrated with how nurses and the like are treated. That's really got nothing to do with an internet thread, just personal opinion.

I find it sad nurses are expected to be top notch at insane hours while copping abuse, fainting from dehydration and wetting themselves because they're refused a bathroom. Not only does that violate all sorts of laws... Well I wouldn't want someone that weary and disorientated from lack of food/water/bathroom breaks to be caring for me or my DC! How could I be sure they'd be competent in that sort of state IYSWIM? The treatment of nurses by higher authorities effects patient care as well. I find it worrying that it's deemed okay for me to possibly receive substandard treatment (unintentionally, I mean!) because state budget matters more.

I am a nurse and I have been for 19 years and despite the negativity we seem to be experiencing in some areas I still thoroughly enjoy my job. I have had the privilege to care for some amazing people throughout the years and I get an enormous amount of satisfaction from caring for my patients.

OP I am sorry your friend was upset to see nurses eating at the nurses station and I agree it does look unprofessional but as many others have said when its the only thing on offer during a shift the temptation is often too great. Reality is break are few and far between and shifts are often longer than is intended for a variety of reasons. We're not angels, we're not special we're just human and part of being human is needing to eat!

I am supposed to be becoming a student nurse this year. I am bow considering pulling out. I already knew about the long hours, lack of breaks, busy wards, staying late, possibility of assault etc.

However I know from past experience that dehydration adversely affects my concentration and induces migraines which affect my vision. I worried this would affect my ability to care for people in the manner they deserve. I had thought I had come up with a solution, take a water bottle to work and keep it in the office or nurses station. I now realise this would make me an unprofessional cunt with impure motives (not sure what these are but sound bad). I don't want to be any of these things, I also think patients deserve to be treated by someone more intelligent than someone who could come up with such a selfish 'solution'.

Despite what people may think about me, harming someone is the last thing I would ever want to do so perhaps it's for the best I quit before someone is harmed.

I must pass on my apologies to any applicants less selfish than me whose place I may have taken.

My attitude towards mental health? Oh do fuck off. I called your chat crazy as your whore and cunt ramblings don't exactly come across as rational now do they?

Which was before you mentioned your mental health......

Grumoyoldbat, again totally disproportionate do you not think? If conditions are indeed that awful for every nurse ever you're right to be worried but can't you see a difference between water and crisps? You might need a better sense of perspective.

Of course I recognise the difference. I as an individual know my performance is impaired by dehydration. Other individuals it will be low blood sugar which impairs their performance which crisps would help with but water would not.

All three of them on a quiet ward just had to eat at that moment or their blood sugars would crash?

I think not!