To get annoyed by this FB status and think that nurses are not angels?

[lougle]

I'm not a big FB user. I tend to scroll through the news feed and rarely post. Today I saw a post about nurses. It basically told off patients for ringing their call buzzer for a cup of tea because nurses are really busy and have very much more important things to do, then sneered about being called stupid 'by someone who didn't even finish 10th grade'.

AIBU to think that nurses choose to work as a nurse and patients shouldn't have to worry about whether a nurse has had his/her break before asking for a cup of tea (when they're not allowed to get it themselves)?

(I'm a nurse).

[MummaV]

Every patient has a jug of water. Tea is not a necessity. Whenever I have been in hospital I have been offered tea at breakfast, mid morning, lunch time, mid afternoon, tea time and around 8pm. That's 6 offers of tea a day by the lady with the tea trolley. No one needs cups of tea more frequently than that, not enough to bother a busy nurse.
If you have visitors or are able to get out of bed you can go and get yourself a cup, otherwise wait until its offered again.

I have been in hospital 3 times in the past year for at least one night stays and every time there has been an over demanding patient (who is perfectly capable of getting their own tea, changing the channel on their tv, waiting their turn on the meds round etc) who annoys the nurses by wanting to be first for everything and wanting all their attention when other people on the ward need their attention more, being unable to get out of bed unaided etc. It's usually these people that get attitude from the nurses. Every nurse I have seen have been lovely, occasionally very tired and stressed, but lovely none the less.

[kali110]

Yes i've been offered tea, coffee ( and chocolate at night which was lovely!) several times a day along with food.
There was also hot water station at my hospital if you wanted more.
I don't think getting tea should be a top priority.
Poor nurses have got enough to do.
I certainly don't begrudge them sitting down for 5 minutes to eat something.

[SweetTeaVodka]

Very well said, putputput.

I'm another nurse who hates nurses being likened to angels.

[LavenderRain]

I also second whoever said that nurses are expected to do more and more.

And I also second whoever praised HCA's. We have band 3 hca's who are fab and band 4 nursing assistants who do exactly The same job as nurses for less money. The only things they can't do is look after a ventilated patient or give drugs. I actually think they are misused awfully, I feel sorry for what they are asked to do sometimes.

[AlbertHerbertHawkins]

I am a nurse and can confirm that I am an angel

[frumpet]

I hate being called an Angel , makes me feel icky , unlike being covered in every conceivable human bodily fluid !

I will make you a cup of tea , every time you ask , I will also go home two hours ( unpaid ) later than I should .

And a polite request , don't tell me your pain score is a 10 , then whilst I am checking out the morphine with another nurse wander up to the nurses station and tell me you will have it when you get back on the ward after going off for a cigarette , a half a mile round trip , because that really pisses us off and prevents the poor patient three beds up from you getting their pain relief in a timely fashion .

[Jeffreythegiraffe]

The role of nurses has changed so much, our roles have been extended so much we're doing a lot of the same jobs as junior doctors. Only with no more time to do it, but a lot more paperwork. HCAs in the same respects are also doing more. Where I work we aren't allowed a drink/bottle of water on the ward, we're expected to go to the staff room for a drink. The staff room is off the ward, so every time I want a mouthful of water I'm expected to leave the ward. It's ridiculous. So, we don't.

[Shockers]

The person on my friends list who shares lots of posts about nurses being angels is an old friend of mine who had a severe stroke about 2 years ago.

She still can't walk, or lift up her arms. She spent a considerable amount of time in hospital and is now being cared for at home (she lives alone).

My friend was an amazingly fit woman in her mid 40s when she had the stroke, so she would have good reason to feel very hard done by.

Instead, she is full of gratitude and admiration for those who have cared for her. I enjoy seeing her posts.

[frumpet]

This thread makes me think of the Richard Branson quote also doing the rounds on FB .

[frumpet]

this one

[fairfat40]

Cups of tea are the least of the problems. The extremely poor communication on wards between doctors and nurses is a real issue. And pointing out that wards ran better with matrons is hardly harking back to the days of old, it's just plain common sense. My poor sister - who went in for a gynae op, but due to heart probs is high risk suffered a kafaesque situation where nobody had permission to administer meds at night, leaving her blood levels dangerously low, so she could not be released from hospital. Nobody twigged. She had to calmly explain about five times to the nurses. She is intelligent and eloquent, but the assumption was that she was stupid, as they just repeated crap about protocol. I was there on one occasion and politely interjected that the problem was the nurses weren't following their own protocol - and finally the penny dropped. Ward rounds so medical staff can TALK to each other would really help.

[cleaty]

I agree communication can be a real problem.

I have found the majority of nurses and HCPs to be very good, but not all. Last time I was in hospital one male nurse continually talked quietly, in spite of nearly all the patients in the ward asking him to speak up when talking to them. And every time a patient said this, he would look slightly annoyed. He was also very cold, and when telling a HCP about my medical treatment when at the end of my bed, totally ignored me.

Tea though is brought regularly. I would never ask for this. I have asked for water jugs to be refilled.

[m1nniedriver]

Fairfat, when I hear people repeating the old mantra 'bring back the matrons' I just smile and nod because they clearly have no idea what they are speaking sbout I'm afraid. So I'm reading your post, I'm smiling and I'm nodding

[lougle]

I'm not denying the pressure nurses are under on the wards, at all. I agree that in a toss up between life-preserving interventions and tea, the tea loses ?.

Perhaps the post was badly worded rather than the sentiment. A post saying 'we do our best but we are so busy that we can't do those things that make you more comfortable' would have been fine. It's the sneery tone that got me.

[Pidapie]

When I was in a&e waiting for an x-ray for hours and hours, it didn't even occur to me to ask for a cup of tea. I think this nurse was too right - she's not there to make cups of tea! I did ask for a glass of water, but that takes 2 seconds and water is an important thing to have. Fair enough if it's a quiet shift and the nurse offers it, but I would personally never ask for luxuries when at hospital.

[HPsauciness]

BigBlue that was my recent experience, the hospital we were in had a hydration nurse or HCA whose whole job was to go around giving fresh water with ice in it in summer twice a day and check if people were drinking (if not on drips). Plus a tea trolly three times a day.

I think the problem is that nurses have much bigger wards to run now and more responsibilities for medication than in the past, so the other jobs they used to do, like feeding elderly and making cups of tea are now not their core job. Fine, if someone steps up to do them, not fine if people on the wards are dehydrated or starving due to this.

There was a case of a man who died of dehydration on a ward in St George's in London, I have never forgotten it as he called the police to say he hadn't had a drink, but nothing was done. It was under a consultant we have had dealings with. That was utterly outrageous.

[Fratelli]

It's when certain nurses keep passing the job onto the next nurse that irritates me. This happened when my grandma was in hospital after an operation and was forced to wait for TWELVE HOURS! for her catheter to be changed as each nurse who came by fobbed her off. It saddened her as she worked in hospitals for most of her career.

[no73]

Another nurse bashing thread......

[QuintShhhhhh]

And what about the patient that needs some help eating?

A friend ended up going to hospital every day to ensure her friend was fed, the nurses put the patients food out of reach, and came back an hour later to bin the food. My friend ended up helping all the patients in that ward eat and drink.
Her friend was ill with cancer. maybe it would cost the NHS less if the patients just starved to death rather than prolonging the suffering of seriously ill patients.

Nurses are not angels. They just do their job, some do it well, some dont, like most people.

[Bapsout]

This is completely against the accepted grain but I think nurses are very well paid for a job which isn't particularly intellectually demanding, is relatively stable (far more stable than many many other public sector jobs), and can be as demanding as it's made (i.e. it's easy for a nurse to do very little work on a shift). I used to be a nurse.

[QuintShhhhhh]

A nurse forgot my dad out on a balcony. She brought him out there to enjoy the early spring sun, and left him there. The sun disappeared behind a building, it was cold, my dad was paralyzed, not in a motorized wheelchair, he had no buzzer. .... 2 hours, in sub zero arctic temperature. Naturally he got pneumonia. English Nurse, Norwegian nurse, does not matter, everybody makes mistakes, but when medical people make mistakes, the consequences can be so much worse. It is irresponsible to have such low staffing levels that people dont have time to think about everything they have to do in a shift.

[fairfat40]

M1nniedriver, you can smile and nod as much as you like. It doesn't negate my sister's experience. You clearly haven't read my post properly. Yes, the fact wards appear to have ran better in the 'old days' may simply have been a coincidental correlation - but things are clearly not working, and a lack of communication is to blame. Maybe a lack of matron is to blame for this. Maybe not. But something has gone wrong. It's not just me who thinks this home.bt.com/news/uk-news/diagnosis-errors-among-top-reasons-for-nhs-complaints-report-finds-11364006111131

[cleaty]

You are supposed to have a named nurse in the ward who co-ordinates your care. I have never been told who that is when I have been in hospital.

[stopfuckingshoutingatme]

nurses are not angels but they are chronically underpaid, and short staffed and therefore they deserve some respect

my midwife went off for a break mid my labour! she said "I am off for lunch and when I come back we will push him out"- and she was right !

and yeah you get the tea when its offered !

[cleaty]

I don't think nurses are underpaid. HCAs who do what used to be called nursing, are very underpaid.