Best behaviour you've encountered on a hospital ward

[amymel2016]

Just to offer some balance this evening...

I've had some amazing care from the NHS recently. Everything from the HCA who saved me a bed next to the window after I'd had my DS to the Consultant I saw last week who put my mind at ease about my most recent illness.

I also love the dinner lady who slipped me an extra ice cream!

The lovely nurse who held my hand while I had my face stitched up after a very nasty riding accident. All the lovely HCPs who have looked after me during various surgeries (the fab anesthetist who listened to me when I said I was terrible with GAs). I now work in a hospital (not a HCP) and hear all sorts of wonderful stories about the staff.

Little Gds has been in hospital several times, including in ICU, with bronchiolitis. Each time the care has been fantastic - we have been so grateful to the staff.

At the other end of the scale, some years ago my mother, at over 90 and with pretty bad dementia, was in hospital with a broken hip.

Because of her dementia she could be decidedly stroppy but the staff were so good with her. She told them more than once that she was going to to tell her father of them, and he'd have them all put in prison.

At one point one of the nurses replied, 'Well, I've spoken to your father, and he says you've got to eat your lunch.' 😄
You hear so often of hospital staff being completely clueless about dementia - this lot certainly weren't.

FIL was in hospital for a very long time the Christmas before last, we expected him to die, he was in intensive care for three weeks, we were driving an hour each way every day to see him...it was a horrible stressful time.

One nurse in particular stood out, she was called Joy and was fantastic with him. She cheered him up, comforted him when he was scared and put up with his minor flirting as he started to feel better. She was also great at giving us information and let us bring his Granddaughters in to see him which really helped him!

I missed skin to skin with dc1 as I haemorrhaged right after birth. I was recovering from surgery when the consultant came in with dc stripped down to a nappy. She was like an avenging angel, in a ringing voice she asked ‘ has this child been given skin to skin with its mother?’ On hearing no, she tucked dc1 under the covers on my bare chest, and we both had the most blissful, healing sleep. Will never forget her.
With dc2, the registrar scanned me after a huge amount of meconium made them suspect breech birth. Dc2 was footling, and the registrar made it so clear that I had a choice, c sec or try for a natural birth. I chose c sec in a heartbeat despite being afraid of having one. Was able to come to terms with the circumstances so fast because he gave me a choice rather than pressuring me.

The nurse who brought me a cup of tea at 2am a couple of weeks ago in Sick Kids A&E waiting for my daughter to be admitted to the high dependency unit. I was knackered and dazed and could have hugged her for that tea.

Had a huge scary bleed whilst working abroad, was subjected to brutal and invasive treatment in hospital, unnecessary frightening operation, treated like a piece of meat in a very degrading way.

Came back to the beautiful NHS who treated me with care, and dignity. I have never felt so grateful as when the kind ultrasound lady identified the problem within five minutes.

The extraordinary team who saved my life when I had DC1, especially the anaesthetist who went off shift but refused to leave until many hours later when I was out of theatre and safe - he then came to see me almost every day of my week long stay in hospital.

With DC2, the kindly anaesthetist who stroked my face and spoke soothing words throughout my c-section and the expected complications that followed. I’ve been particularly lucky with my anaesthetists!

Dunnoaboutthat

This thread is lovely. Restores the faith in humanity!

THIS

Every midwife who helped me before during and after the birth of my daughter. For weeks I couldn't speak or think about the birth without welling up because I have never felt so grateful to anyone and for them it was all just in a day's work. I was absolutely in awe at their humanity and compassion. Reading these stories gives me a similar feeling.

I love the NHS. It's not perfect but the people make it what it is. I had an ectopic pregnancy and the nurses and consultants were amazingly patient and understanding. Literally can't thank them enough. In my short life I've had cause for a total of 6 operations for various reasons. Mostly me being clumsy and needing limbs repaired, so I've had more experience of the service than most.
Sometimes facilities aren't pristine and there is a fair bit of waiting around but look what we've got! It truly is amazing

Also the recently qualified nurse who held my hand whilst being wheeled in for emergency surgery. I was sobbing uncontrollably and her reassurance and comforting 'it will be ok I won't leave your side' helped me brave it. My husband was only allowed to go so far and she basically took over from him. She was fucking amazing.., loved that girl!

All of them, really.

But things like a HCW walking two wards away to find me ice cream, yoghurt and jelly because my throat was a bit fucked from an air tube and I couldn't eat solids yet.

Much appreciated.

I've just read this thread in full and am literally bawling my eyes out. What fucking awesome people we live amongst!

I once was looked after by a wonderful nurse on an acute medical ward. She magically appeared with a hairband and gently tied my hair back off my face and out of the way when I was vomiting my guts up and too poorly to do it myself.

On a different occasion, an A&E nurse insisted on giving me her personal night-shift chocolate stash from her handbag when I had been in A&E most of the night and was desperate for something sweet but the vending machine wouldn't work.

Another nurse who was very kind and spent time with me one day when I had been in hospital for a number of days and was feeling quite upset. She specifically came back onto the ward the following day just to wish me a happy birthday. I was astounded and really touched that she remembered.

There are some completed miracle workers out there but the things that really stick for me are these simple but beautifully kind gestures in treating someone like a fellow human being, not just 'the patient in bed 15'.

When my father was in hospital, the nurses on his ward were absolutely phenomenal. He was in for some time, admitted with ascites but then diagnosed with cancer before sadly passing away.

The nurses were warm, loving, funny and kind; indulged his odd sense of humour and brought him genuine comfort. After my sister and I left his body in his room we realised we had left something behind and returned to find the nurses on shift preparing him for the morgue - removing his cannulas etc. They were both sobbing. That touched me more than I can say.

I find A&E staff rarely get a mention/recognition as people’s interaction with them is usually fleeting.

I was recently very poorly (CCU poorly) with a huge pulmonary embolism. After I was discharged after 10 days (and receiving very good care) my anxiety kicked in with a vengeance, I also suffered from some symptoms mimicking the initial PE and some pretty nasty side effects from the blood thinners I’m taking.

As a result I’ve been back to A&E no less than 5 times in the last month. Each time I’ve been treated with kindness and understanding, even when it’s turned out that I’m OK - as the doc (and some of the nurses) said, we’d rather have you here to reassure you than you sitting at home panicking, and they fully acknowledged the psychological impact of what had happened to me.

I’m going to drop off a couple of big boxes of chocolates the next time I’m there for an appointment.

This is a great thread.

I have so many. I was treated with such compassion during my last miscarriage (my fifth) and then again during my sixth pregnancy when I was terrified of another miscarriage (DD is now 7 and in bed next to me playing on the iPad!).

DD's birth went pretty badly and was very long. We were on our seventh midwife (!) when she was told she had to go and attend to another woman and I would move on to my eighth midwife - i felt such despair but then she refused to go and was with us till the end. That helped so much, as I was not feeling looked after at that point and things were starting to go wrong.

The consultant who realised something was wrong with DD the next day almost before anything happened - and the fantastic antenatal ward staff who got me into a single room as quickly as they could as I was left on a ward without my baby, sobbing my heart out.

All the staff in NICU were amazing. I've posted this before but I was called over at about 3am on Christmas morning to see if I wanted to feed her as she'd woken up. By the time I got over there from the ward she had fallen asleep again so I sat there and watched her and the staff made me a hot chocolate. They'd made a little Christmas card from her with her photo and her footprint inside and it was in her incubator with a tiny Christmas stocking. It was the most wonderful thing.

And later, DH was allowed to stay with me all day (he could stay on NICU as long as he wanted but not on the antenatal ward) as it was a Christmas Day, and he even got his own Christmas dinner too. After we'd eaten it, I said to the lovely lovely HCA, "gosh, I'm so hungry I could eat that again" - she got me another one!

It was a terrifying and distressing time but there were so many examples of people going above and beyond (all while their own families were at home celebrating Christmas without them too).

Mine was a midwife from my prenatal care who popped into the neonatal unit to see how my 26 weeker was doing the day after birth. My daughter mainly resembled a shrivelled, transparent, shaved baby monkey at the time but the midwife peered down and breathed reverently "Oh she is beeoooo-tiful".

She also brought a copy of the very hungry caterpillar for me to read incubator side.

Oh yes, and the nurse who when walking me from the EPU to the ward so I could have a D&C after finding out that the heartbeat had stopped at 11 weeks grabbed my hand and simply said I’m so sorry for your loss. Such a small gesture but it meant so much.

The nurse who found me on my hospital bed crying in a heap because I had no idea where my baby had gone.

It was about 3 hours after he'd been born and my DH was staying in the room with DS while I showered. While I was in the shower a registrar appeared to take DS down to NICU and when I came back out they were gone.

The nurse took me down to the NICU and spent the whole time explaining to me what to expect when I arrived.

The wonderful nurses who helped DH with DS's first meconium pooh, while in an incubator.

The patients in A & E who didn't raise an eyebrow or tut or anything when my OH was fast tracked past them late last year, when we rocked up with a hand versus hedgetrimmer incident. Not one bit of fuss was made, although the waiting room was stacked full and no doubt some of those amazingly patient and tolerant people had been waiting for hours by that point. One lady did look a bit faint at the sight of his bloody hand (still encased in his glove, so we'd no idea what was attached inside it) and there was no doubt he needed to see someone quickly, but still....I was definitely anticipating a bit of "oy we were here first" but not a bit of it.

Ooh also just remembered the lovely paeds a&e nurse when ds aged about 18months was in in the middle of the night with nasty chest, once he'd had some steroids and nebs he was sat up saying he was "ungry". The nurse asked what he wanted and he said "loggit!"(yoghurt) which she went away and brought him back from her own bag. I'm a nurse and very often disheartened with the job but I'm loving this thread x

The lovely doctor in Brighton hospital's AAU who treated a homeless man with a bad chest infection with great dignity, kindness and compassion. He saw that the patient's feet were in an very bad state and arranged for a podiatrist to come and sort them out.

I later overheard him telling the nurses that he always checks the feet of rough sleepers, because he when he was a student doctor he'd seen a homeless man with gangrene that had started from a very minor foot problem.

And a lovely nurse who spent a couple of hours in my room during the night when I'd just had a sinus operation. I was on morphine, couldn't stay awake but also couldn't stop vomiting. She stayed with me until the on-call came and gave me a shot of metoclopramide and for an hour or so afterwards, to make sure I was ok. It was so reassuring knowing that she was there.

The next day, she'd told me that she was concerned about the risk of me choking and thought I needed watching. She was also amazingly gentle when removing all the wadding from inside my nose!

I was moving hospital. I told the nurse who came to tell me I can't. She said why and I told her I had no visitors that day so no-one to pack my things. She did it straight away for me while telling me how the next hospital was a sign I was getting better.

When I had my first DD, the midwife started the night being awful. I was young, naive and alone. My mum had had to leave, my twat of an ex had chosen to leave. I was being induced and in lots of pain. All they could offer was codeine, which was useless... she managed to find a doctor to prescribe me pethedine and then she sat and stroked my hair until I fell asleep. I didn’t see her again to say thank you, and I regret that. She was so gentle and calm when I was so scared.

And when I had my second DD, I was in established labour but still on the antenatal ward, again I was being induced m,y contractions were coming thick and fast and the midwives were ignoring me, saying I wasn’t in labour and even if I was they couldn’t do anything because they were too busy,
This amazing volunteer was doing the cake run and I’ve never seen a woman change personality so fast, she handed me and DH a brownie m told us to eat it quickly and pack because she was getting us moved. She fought for me, and thank god she did. She dragged the midwife over from the station and stood there whilst the midwife timed my contractions and eventually looked at my monitor and notes.....from there I was rushed to delivery for the lifesaving treatment me and DD needed.