To want to know what’s the meanest patient you’ve ever had? A question for nurses and anyone else working in the healthcare industry!

[Bellad19]

I’ve only worked in healthcare for 5 years, but NEVER in my five years have I had a patient be horrible to me until today. I am baffled as to how somebody could be so RUDE to someone who is trying to look after them!!
Please cheer me up and share your stories of awful patients with me so I know that I’m not alone 😭 I’m a sensitive person anyway but for some reason today really got to me and I’ve just cried ever since I got home! I’ll blame the pregnancy hormones!!

Well the one where I told them their appointment was cancelled because the consultant had died suddenly and we had nobody else to see them at short notice wasn't great. They said it wasn't good enough........I was like 'but he's dead'!

In the nicest possible way OP I’m not sure you’ll get many responses here- for exactly the same reason you haven’t told us what happened to you today. You can’t post about vulnerable patients online even when they’re arseholes.

She can post if nothing can be identified.

Tell all!!! X

Not all patients are vulnerable

I was once called a fucking idiot by a patient for a mistake that his GP surgery had made and clearly wasn’t my fault. The guy was 85!
Not a serious error either, they missed an item off his repeat Rx.
I’m a pharmacist, I get shouted at a lot, I’ve learned not to take it personally.

@AppleKatie you’re so right, I didn’t post details for that reason but didn’t even think about responses. Can I blame baby brain 🙈
I think I just need to eat some chocolate, go to sleep and hopefully will wake up in the morning and see I was just being silly and hormonal! X

I once had to sit with one patient while I could hear the patient in the next bed telling outright lies to her friends about me and how apparently awful I’d been to her. It was the most upsetting & humiliating experience of my career. The thing that still rankles most is her complaining that when I’d taken a blood sample I ‘stuck the needle RIGHT in my ARM!’ - how else am I supposed to do it??

@crispyturtle oh my goodness that’s horrible! I’ve been a patient in hospital before and I can’t imagine ever being horrible to the people looking after me, I was just so grateful!

Oops I didn’t realise there was more than one place to post,
I’m fairly new to mumsnet. This probably doesn’t belong in AIBU sorry! 🙈😂

I'm a paramedic and we tend to just knock and walk into people's houses when they've called rather than wait for someone to come to the door. I was dispatched to attend a young man who described himself as being unable to breath. When I arrived I opened tbe front door since it was unlocked to find the man walking downstairs "who the f do you think you are coming into my house, you will wait at the door until I'm ready to let you in". I confirmed his identity as the patient and promptly return to my car and left.

There are meaner people I've met, but that one just stuck in my head for some reason!

Q

@hamsterholder wow how rude!! I take my hat off to you as a paramedic, I was taken into hospital via ambulance before and the paramedics were the kindest most caring people ever!!

'Pregnancy hormones'

'Silly and hormonal'

'Baby brain'

Honestly OP those phrases aren't doing professional women (or any women for that matter) any favours.

If you have a reason to be aggrieved or upset, just tell us about it if it helps?

I've yet to see a professional man blame his feelings on anything other than the actual situation he's upset or angry about.

@worraliberty

Thank you, I appreciate you validating my feelings! Sometimes I feel like because I work in healthcare, I knew what I was taking on and therefore should be more hard hearted and not let things upset me but I’m just not like that!

A patient once said to me 'you know, I've been watching you run around all day, you've never stopped! I don't know how you keep hold of that weight'

Not really the meanest, I'm not easily offended and found it quite funny actually, but you put a gown on someone and their filter just dissapears!

Also was chatting to one man before a procedure to try and chill him out a bit, and he said 'them drugs you've given me are brilliant I feel really relaxed and tired now' only I hadn't given him any, I must just be really boring!!

Have to laugh don't you

I'm a nurse and I've had a few comments made by patients which I've taken in my stride but as a psychiatric nurse it sometimes comes with the job (if they have capacity then obviously it's not acceptable) and we take a zero tolerance on verbal abuse.
But in my case it's some patients relatives that have been the most awful..one made me cry once. Not in front of the said person but afterwards I cried my eyes out..

The patient's father who punched me in the face when I asked him not to bring additional paracetamol tablets to his daughter who had recently had paracetamol from the staff stands out in my memory.

I can forgive a lot from my patients, who are mentally unwell, but some relatives are unspeakable.

Someone told me I'm built for comfort not for speed

I was doing an ECG on a patient, another patient, an elderly man, in bed facing the wall, started calling for the nurse by name, I'll call her Julie.

Finished and on my way out said to Julie, the gentleman there's calling for you.

Julie went over and the 'gentleman' turned over and said, "Julie, grab it now I'm about to cum".

I think that is the rudest, nastiest thing I came across.

@Stompythedinosaur oh my god that's horrific. Did you phone the police? Wow absolute wow..
And I'm the same, can forgive my mentally unwell patients but not relatives...
One threatened to sue me and hold me responsible if said daughter of relative ended her life..I'm a community psychiatric nurse

We had a paramedic be really awful to my brother once, huffing and sighing she decided he was wasting their time and stuck a plaster on his finger in a very patronising way. (( He'd flipped over the handle bars on his bike, landed on his head and damaged his hand which he couldn't move )) staff at Asda where we'd sat him down rang the ambulance as he appeared confused.

After being tipped out of the ambulance by two very eye rolly paramedics who basically said there was nothing wrong with him but theyd take him if he wanted to (( he of course said no after being made to feel like an Uber twat )) he ended up being rushed back in a few hours later because of his odd behaviour. One fractured skull diagnosed and so much damage to his hand he was off work for six months (( he's an engineer and does a lot of fiddly work )) needed numerous ops and was lucky not to end his career entirely !

I remember once looking after a lady who had had her gallbladder out. One of those white bang ones done through a laparoscope. She had a drip and drain.All day she complained of pain. Okay, I can understand that. Gave her all the pain relief she could have. Got her seen a couple of times for it. Most people can manage to walk a short distance with some assistance the day after this. This lady couldn’t. So, with the drip, I was carting her out to the bathroom on the commode about every half hour all morning. No easy feet as she was easily twice my size and commodes are designed by the same folk who design shopping trolleys I’m sure. Really hard to get near any of my other patients and when I did she wanted something. I was nice to her all morning and she hadn’t said anything awful to me, just grumbling. However after lunch I went to her yet again. She looked me in the eyes and told me that I was the whitest nurse she had ever known. I was utterly exhausted with her by this stage. I just cried, couldn’t stop myself.

The "whitest"? Is that an insult?