IAm if you don't mind me asking - you weren't in Aberdeen by any chance? Because I witnessed something very similar with a lady who had Alzheimer's. Saw her when I was visiting my mum once on a ward.
I was upset for her, as she actually pulled her own catheter out which must have been terribly sore, and kept asking to go home. I was visiting my mum like I say, who had to go see another doctor in another room, so I was left alone with this lady. I at first went to get the nurses - I presume, an HCA by uniform, and she actually tricked the lady by telling her she'd missed the last bus and would have to wait all night, which only upset her more. She didn't want to get the bus with her catheter in, told me it was embarrassing and disgusting and unladylike.
I went and sat with her, and asked her gently why she was so desperate to get the bus, where was she going? She explained that her father would be waiting for her, and it was tea time. Now she was 90 + , and her father was obviously long dead. I told her he wouldn't mind waiting a while longer, and asked her to tell me about him. What stories she had - she had seen the start of the very hospital we were in, had worked there as had her husband, she was a radiographer.. Her bracelet was from her gran, her rings were her wedding rings passed down from others.. She'd gone to school in what I knew as a shopping centre.
I sat with her for two hours, slowly tucking her into bed, sorting her nightdress as it was half off, etc, and thoroughly enjoyed her company - she'd had such a normal life, in every way, but to me it was fascinating. She seemed comforted by being there, in her earlier years, no longer confused. I left her much happier than earlier, as I left she was happily telling me to join the home guard as I had the body for it!
Have never forgotten all that she told me. I kept an eye on the announcements in the paper for over a year, and when she died, thankfully having been sent to a care home for her final months, sent a message to her family telling them what a lovely woman she was.
The lady next to her (who had been in and out a couple of times having tests in these two hours) asked me if I would go for being an hca (hence, two years later...)
That's the sort of thing I'd love to do every day, and what I would hope any nurse or HCA would want to do - but I suppose, as has been said on here, it has to be balanced between bedpans, toast, bed baths, discharges and broken tvs. And all those things are such a huge part of getting anyone to better health, or in ensuring someone experiences good palliative care.
I've tried to understand why the nurse would want to trick her like that - I suppose, her upset was relentless and I have no doubt it returned once the distraction of me had gone, but there are ways she could have helped I think without doing what I did, and without mocking her and being cruel as well. I'm no saint, I think if I was actually working there I may well have reacted entirely differently but I'd still not see it as acceptable or right.