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?

Having spent far too much time in the hospital over the past few years (home from home), in my opinion you are being utterly unreasonable. Nurses generally work their butts off, have little or no time for a break, yet still manage to spare a smile, a joke and comforting words to those of us who are in crises. I think your friend should apologise tbh.

I really have to stop biting but JackNoneTheReacher on the ward I worked on I was usually working with either a very junior Staff Nurse or a newly qualified.

We had no staff room/ no office, we had to do hand over in the Consultants secretaries office.

To have a break you had one of three choices, the staff loo. . . the patients day room, or the canteen that was at least 10 minutes away if the lifts were running in your favour.

So eat in the loo. . . .

Eat in front of patients and their relatives who would sit judging you.

Or leave the ward. . . In the hands of a scared junior Nurse. . .knowing that if anything happened it could take you 10 minutes + to get back there.

Or at the desk where you could grab a handful of crisps while doing the mountains of fucking paperwork you had to do everyday.

When i first started nursing as an auxiliary nurse many many years ago the paper work to admit a patient took 10-15 minutes, when I left it took 90-100 minutes. . . .

Oh and hand over in the Consultants secretaries office, we had to be done before the secretaries came in, no matter what had happened o the previous shift, it was more important that we leave the office than fully hand over patients conditions and needs in private.

Having had a few ops its tormenting not being able to eat or drink but inever begrudged others eating they werent doing it to torment me. Having work with the public but thankfully not a nurse im surprised if there will be any left in years to come as people can be so rude a judemental. It takes a strong and caring person too do this job, and have a huge amount of patience. I for one could not do it. Im laid back but would not have the patience!

Wow lovely posts AnyFucker, it was just a turn of phrase - I wasn't actually advocating physical violence. And yes, the nurses I encountered have indeed been rude and disrespectful, some of what I have experienced as a patient - including denying me necessary medication, but other things that I won't go into - has amounted to a physical attack on me. Far from being a demanding patient, I didn't dare to complain.
We all know what happens to 'rude' patients right? HINT: it's NOT pleasant. I have been there. That 'learned' me to dare to question the Authoritah of the power-crazed psychopaths nurses.
What part of HOSPITAL PATIENTS ARE VULNERABLE do you not understand??
Love the posts dismissing the OP's friend going nearly 24 hours without food as nothing, yet claiming the nurses couldn't possibly manage not to eat for a whole 12 hour shift! Although no-one is asking them to, just to have the basic empathy and manners to go elsewhere before eating.
Sweetestcup, again, lovely...call me a liar and claim your opinion is The Facts...I know what I experienced, thanks.
Consider me out of this thread. As a victim of some appalling nursing 'care' it is too upsetting. Clearly some disgruntled nurses are on here, well, as I said, don't take that out on vulnerable patients.

I'm a nurse, what a very depressing thread. Threads like this make me want to stop mumsnetting. How horrible and judgemental some posters can be.

Your friend is BU. She is hungry so she wants everyone else to suffer too? How charming.

If I get a break during a shift (and that happens probably about half the time) then that would be one opportunity to eat and drink in 13 hours. Does that sound reasonable to you?

How is eating a snack taking one's disgruntlement out on patients butterfly?!

I was 5 days in hospital after c section and pre eclampsia so got to know the midwives pretty wll. There schedule is majorly demanding and if they are needed they don't get breaks. They often have 12 hour shifts, too so that is pretty long. They need to keep their energy up to look after a patient so need to eat.

If however, they wandered into your friends room and sat and crunched a packet of crisps I would find that very rude and tactless.

Sweetestcup, again, lovely...call me a liar and claim your opinion is The Facts...I know what I experienced, thanks

I am not claiming my opinion is "fact" - stop putting words into my mouth....posts arent being filled - that is a fact, not an opinion die to budget cuts.... I said is there is no way anyone can claim "MOST" nurses are rude and lazy etc - based on the experiences of 1 person - who cannot claim to have met every Nurse in every clinical setting in the UK !

due

As a victim of some appalling nursing 'care' it is too upsetting. Clearly some disgruntled nurses are on here, well, as I said, don't take that out on vulnerable patients

I thought she couldn't eat because she was having surgery? I couldn't even have a drink to take my tablets the day of my surgery and i hadn't been able to eat anything after 9pm the night before so they weren't starving her. As few nurses on here why cant you have fluids before an op anyway? Don't get disgruntled. A few bad nurses don't make all nurses bad. Like i said i would never be able to do your job, i couldnt take the rudeness!

Some posters here clearly of the 'Harold Shipman was mass murderer therefore all GP's are psychopaths' school of logic.

I'm not a disgruntled nurse Butterflywgs. Just a very grateful carer. But you sound like a bit of a twat.

Your friend is an adult, who was not allowed to eat for a medical reason. Not being starved because malicious nurses decided to deprive her of food. Nil by mouth to enable her to receive her free at the point of delivery care. The pair of you need to grow up. Unfortunately most people don't appreciate the NHS until they need to use it for something far more serious than a tonsillectomy. Luckily for the rest of the population most NHS staff are passionate about the fact we are a civ

Civilised country that provides all it's citizens with good quality care regardless of their means, despite the lack of appreciation by huge swathes of said citizens.

I agree with sweetestcup . I've never worked on a ward that had all it's positions filled. Then it addition take out people on sick leave (normally a few on long term sick), maternity leave, in meetings, on training... you get the idea. Often you have bank staff in to make up numbers, but they can't do a lot of things, so regular staff have to do their share.

As few nurses on here why cant you have fluids before an op anyway?

i would guess in case you vomit whilst under anesthetic and choke to death. In my uneducated opinion.

Kali - you are not supposed to drink or eat prior to surgery due to the risk of aspirating. Basically as you are intubated (breathing tube put in) you may vomit or regurgitate and it could go in to your lungs and cause a serious infection.
Therefore the less that is in your stomach the better, and the less chance of that occurring.

Thankyou for that i allways forget to ask!

butterfly I am sorry to hear about your bad experience of nursing care. I assume that you were in a secure psychiatric ward for people with personality disorders?

Just because you had a bad experience it doesn't mean that all nurses are all the things you say they are. What do you do for a job? could you cope with a nursing job? Probably not....

I have just reviewed a clinical incident today which is a direct result of 3 posts being left unfilled for almost a year.

The clinical governance board will still scapegoat and blame the poor (only) nurse who was covering the department.

They will blame the unfilled posts on lack of funds, caused almost entirely by the massive repayments for the PFI initiative used to build the new hospital which, incidentally, was so badly designed much of it was not fit for purpose.

There are far bigger things that people should be worrying about than some staff eating a few crisps.

Personally I wouldn't eat on the ward where patients could see, but back in my day we did have sister's office and a tea room next to the ward. That is all gone now.

I am a Nurse and I am that Nurses eat in front of patients. It seems very unprofessional, but I did 20 years ago. When I was a student, the sister would have gone fucking spare if we'd eaten in front of patients. I think we used to go into the office or a staff room to eat or drink.

• I did train 20 years ago