Worst behaviour you’ve encountered in hospital ward

[Ithinkthatsenough]

I am probably being U and touchy in posting this as ive just spent the day in hospital having a late d&c...
on ward with 2 other ladies who were chatty, was fine and bearable this morning, after 1/2 hohri knew all about their admissions and problems, children’s schooling, then had to put my headphones in when they started on bowel movements.
I was having an op, cleary due to care, questions asked, they could hear eveyrthinf tooand quite a distressing one

In labour with dc1. No beds on delivery ward so I was put in an antenatal monitoring ward while they prepared a room in delivery. I went into full labour suddenly and dh rna off to find a midwife. I was naked from waist down and a bloke pulled back the curtains and told me to stfu as his wife was on the phone. It still makes me cry when I remember how fucking humiliating that was.

Mogon you were definitely not unreasonable!

I was admitted as an emergency once and they sent three med students to take blood. Each one of them tried (and failed) a couple of times and when I said weakly 'could you please stop hurting me' they all just giggled as if it was a terribly jolly jape

flubdub, your story reminded me of one from years (& years ago) when I was a nursing student - we nurses were pretty shocked to find a guy shagging his partner (single room bed for that lady for some reason) as we went round with the afternoon tea trolley. I think we just backed out nervously & left them to it - but now I've had DC myself I could think of nothing worse a day or so having a baby. How sad & disrepectful for those women.
When I had my 2nd DS who was born 8 weeks prem, he was in SCBU & I was put in a post natal ward with a very young girl whose partner often came in with loads of McDonalds type food, their radio was on loudly & constant & then both would leave the room to head out for a fag. Baby was hardly visited as she was too tiny to be breast fed - even by tube - & had some other type of nutrient or something being given to her. I remember because I had been so desparate to hold my own bubs but she was very disinterested in the whole business.

@ButternutCrinkleFries this whole thread has freaked me out to be honest (38+1 with first DC) but that has just about taken the biscuit. Did you complain to the nurses? What an utter arsehole

We were admitted late to a children's ward( 1030pm) as my little boy had broke his leg needing an operation to fix it , he was in a lot of pain and was moaning (he was 5) man staying with his child whipped back the curtain and proceeded to ask me to keep him quiet as was up early with his son .
I spent all night awake trying to hush my child , and panicked every time the bed squeaked. You could hear the dad tutting and sighing,

Old woman in bed opposite being examined by the doctor. Curtain drawn of course. Her daughter was with her as the lady was very elderly and a bit deaf. Everyone talking in loud voices.

Doc: I’m going to have to digitally examine your rectum Mrs Smith.
Mrs Smith: What? I don’t hear very well.
Doc (loudly): I’m going to have to digitally examine your rectum.
Mrs Smith: What? I don’t understand...
Daughter (almost shouting) He’s going to put his finger up your arse, Mum

In a hospital waiting with my dh and baby waiting for baby to die. We were well supported by staff and mostly kept away from other patients with babies who were getting better but one woman latched onto my husband and told us that if we believed properly in God and prayed enough our baby would recover. That hurt.

Otherwise I've seen some horrendous abuse of staff and the odd really mean nurse. That odd experience with a woman in the bed diagonally opposite having a religious cleansing/exorcism sort of ceremony might actually have been down to me being full of intravenous morphine.

Woman in bay next to me turned up 1 hour late for a planned c.section. Then when she arrived moaned loudly about black cab. Talked v loudly on her phone. Then shouted across the curtain ‘you don’t mind if we watch A Few Good Men on my I pad do you, only my and my birdie s don’t have anything to talk about’. I said no problem as long as you put your headphones in. She didn’t have any, she wasn’t happy. The midwives hated her and they took me down before her 😂. Saw her next day on post natal and avoided like the plague!

Oh god nelly sorry. I didnt mean to frighten anybody. I had a debrief afterwards and made an official complaint to PALS which resulted in them apologising for me feeling upset . I’m sure it was very much a one off. I was only supposed to be there 10 minutes or so while they prepped the delivery room. Then I was suddenly fully dilated and pushing and being told to stfu! I insisted on going private for dc2 as I was so traumatised by the whole thing.

Admitted to a ward with largely older ladies who told me that the lady in the bed furthest from the nurses station had just been told (on the ward so everyone heard) that she was terminally ill with cancer. She had been propped in the chair but her blanket kept slipping off and no one could pick it up so she rang the bell. The nurse came in and put it back over her but didn't secure it so it fell off again pretty quickly. Lady rang the bell again, nurse came back very grumpily, and laid the blanket over her. When it inevitably dropped off for the third time there was no response to the bell. Another nurse came to the station and mentioned the bell ringing (the lady was getting very distressed) and the first nurse told her to ignore it as the patient was just being a pain.

In 20 hrs my only contact with the nurses on the ward was being handed pain killers on the evening trolley round. No questioning of how I was. At rounds the following morning the consultant was given a description of my condition which bore no relationship to how I actually was. I had to speak up so he knew what the situation was and got the most filthy looks from the staff despite not mentioning that no one had checked on during my time on the ward.

I got moved to another ward but they were horrendously short staffed so patients were waiting hours to get responses to queries. It felt really unsafe as it would have taken a very long time for staff to notice if you deteriorated suddenly. After another day I asked what was happening and when I might get released the nurse said they didn't know but would find out. She took 3 hours to come back to me because of more urgent requests and said I was being kept in for monitoring. I discharged myself as I felt I was just bed blocking and I could just take my own temperature once a day (the only monitoring I was having). Rather than just walkjng out I went and found a nurse who tried to persuade me to stay but I just wanted to get home where I could get a neighbour to check on me occasionally.

I should say that I had a bad experience giving birth so have become rather phobic about the level of care in understaffed hospitals. The consultant came to see me on the recovery ward and his first words to me were "are you going to sue us?"

I cared for a middle aged man in traction who spent every night masterbating into his urinal or into a face cloth....requesting staff to rinse the urinal, rinse the face cloth or simply remake his bed....several times a shift.

No don't be sorry, I should know to avoid threads like this!! I'm not surprised you went private after an experience like that, and a non-apology afterwards

I haven't had a tour of the delivery suite yet - left it really late - but will definitely be enquiring about the likelihood of getting a private room, even if we have to pay through the nose.

I forgot to mention in my earlier thread too of when I had a late miscarriage at 26 weeks & was admitted to the local general hospital - they thought this was more sensitive than admitting me to the maternity unit (separate place). Little tiny baby born, already died sadly, & lo & behold they admit another new Mum with her new born baby, just a few days old, crying loudly & often, into the room right next door to me. Hugely distressing with loads of her family visiting & standing in the hallway - I knew them too - & asking why I was in hospital too. :(

Not me but Dh. Man was in an oxygen tent because of his lung disease. He lit a cigarette under the tent to hide it from the nurses. There was an explosion.

thanks to those who shared similar things!

When I was 21, I was admitted to A and E with anaphylactic shock to a flu virus. A lady was rushed in by ambulance as she had hit her head and put in the cubicle next to me and her daughter was being very cagey about how it all happened and I heard her trying to tell her mum to change her story. Injured lady's partner arrived and there was an argument going on outside the cubicles. Doctors wanted to keep her in overnight but she refused and discharged herself.

I haven't RTFT but have always felt so bad about this behaviour from nursing staff and wish I had been brave enough to speak out at the time.

I was recently an inpatient for 5 nights after orthopaedic surgery. The ward was mainly for new amputees with most aged over 75 years.

A lady, around 75-80 YO had been sat next to her bed for at least 8 hours and kept nodding off, she was exhausted. She started crying, begging to be allowed to get in her bed. The nurses wouldn't let her, I thought their cruelty was, disgusting. The nurses raised her bed so high that no one could have got in without acrobatics.

The poor lady was almost choking because she was so distressed, gulping as she cried to get her breath.

She eventually got a chair to stand on so she could climb (unsafely) into bed. She was standing on the chair trying to pull herself up. A nurse was soon running up the long ward, followed by another nurse and an auxiliary.

What happened next was staggering. One of the nurses grabbed the woman's arms whilst another yanked the chair from under her, sort of pushing her towards the bed so she couldn't actually fall on the floor. The auxiliary was laughing, calling her a stupid girl and saying she should do as they say. Horrified!

All they had to do was allow her to have a lay down fir 20 minutes, that is all she asked for.

I wish I had the courage to speak up and help the woman, I still feel so guilty for not helping her when she was so clearly upset.

When my DD was six weeks old she had a bleed on the brain and was in PICU very ill, she had to be resuscitated twice and we expected the worst. In the opposite bed was a young boy whose family were travellers and the staff would make sly comments about them, mainly about the number of family members who came visiting. When the parents of the young boy realised how ill my DD was, they came over to her with a bottle of Lourdes Holy water and blessed her with it, I still think that it helped her recovery and will always be thankful x

First labour I had to stay in as was poorly afterwards and one young girl across from me had her oh come visit and he was vile to her.
2nd one the girl next to me brought her whole extended family in for a visit even though the rules were only 2 at a time and they sounded like they were dishing up party food!
Although one night I must have been so exhausted one of the midwives has to wake me up as ds2 was crying and I was sleeping right through. Not bad really in comparison to some!

As a nurse there are so many to choose from! Some highlights had been:

Being punched in the face for refusing to give someone more diazepam than was prescribed.

Having a "mystery shitter" patient leave us a series of unpleasant surprises.

Drug dealers coming to the ward to tout for business.

Someone bringing a loaded gun in with them.

My own. After DD was born I remember sitting there howling that I looked like Dolly Parton to a very good looking male consultant while my nightie was round my waist and I was sporting some very becoming flight socks. I also had out a copy of Tatler, which rather ironically, had a guide on how to go topless. Funnily enough it didn't mention anything about the post natal ward

Aloneandscared25 what a horrible experience to go through.
Some people are just disgusting.

DM had been admitted to hospital and needed an urgent operation.

While she was recovering on the ward, another patient kept coming over to her bed and verbally abusing her because their operation had been delayed, presumably to accommodate DM’s.

Whether this was true or not, the hectoring cow evidently blamed DM and was so unpleasant, DM was scared to be left alone on the ward.

Hectoring woman disappeared after a while - whether they did her op or kicked her out, I neither know or care.

An elderly man had fallen over sideways where he sat. He asked a nurse to help him sit up again.
The nurse said she would help him after her break. She explained loudly to the room that it was her break now, that if she didn't go she'd miss it, that after her break she would help him but not now. This was repeated and all interspersed with conspiratorial smiles ( or grimaces) at us.
My mother, a retired nurse herself, said pointedly, By the time you'd said all that, you could have helped him, couldn't you.
The nurse walked off.
My mother went over and helped the man sit up. We were sorry after visiting time to have to leave him to her mercies.

In the same ward, there was a terrible crash from behind some curtains and a spreading pool of water. An elderly man had fallen off his bed while trying to get a drink.
Staff ran in to help him up, but as well as getting him up...he couldn't stand, he'd fallen with a great wallop...they shouted at him for his stupidity and making such a mess. They were calling him 'stupid.'
I wonder what they were like when visitors weren't in the ward.