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!!

@Stompythedinosauroh my god that's horrific. Did you phone the police? Wow absolute wow..

Yes, reported to the police, who took a statement (and a copy of the video recording of the assault) and later the CPS decided it "wasn't in the public interest to prosecute". Exactly the same outcome as the other 20+ assaults in the last decade. I get very tired of police saying that assaults are part of my job as a mental health nurse, I really don't think they are.

@Stompythedinosaur
I can't believe they didn't think it was not in the public's interest to take further..
Did your ward ban him from future visits? I hope so.

@jazzyfizzles I'm up with a sick child atm and the comment about the weight has lightened my mood and made me burst out laughing I'm sorry as that could have been hurtful but sounds as if you saw the funny side of it.

I had someone go absolutely nuclear at me because 'i failed to take her blood'. Absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she yanked her arm backwards when the needle went in. She blew it out of proportion and proceeded to shout in a busy clinic for quite a while. Several other staff members had to intervene. She was issued with a behaviour warning and i refused to deal with her ever again.

Working with patients has to be challenging by its very nature surely, as patients are generally feeling awful or in pain, and/or scared, or if mentally unwell potentially very confused, etc.

Isn't it expected that some will not cope and will verbally lash out, or get shitty at times?

I don't understand saying someone is whitest and OP can't help as you don't say what the issue was that brought you to tears

I have no patience however for shit HCPs who are rude, offhand, dismissive, or a danger to their patients, like the paramedics upthread who dismissed a serious head injury. Bloody twats.

Having said that, there are many dedicated and caring professionals doing all they can to serve the public's well being

I had a patient who swung his overbed trapeze at my head and another time brought his knee up toward my face when I was doing a dressing. Luckily I was young & had quick reflexes, especially since I was getting married the next week. About the same time I had a very large patient back me up against the wall when I tried to stop him from leaving. Things have changed a lot here (Canada) since then- patients can be turfed & or charged for violence against HCP.

Another stand out was the 1-1 guy after a major surgery. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for competently managing a complex patient when he wrote on his communication board "When do I get to see your tits?"

Also - funny, not awful, as this 90 yo patient was confused...we were applying a condom catheter and he said "I thought you were on the pill?!"

'Pregnancy hormones'

'Silly and hormonal'

'Baby brain'

I’m a professional woman (if that matters) and I definitely “suffered” from all of the above while pregnant. I don’t give a shit what “professional men” say. No man will ever have the privilege of being pregnant.

When I worked in the community as a carer I had one lady give me a full half an hour of abuse, think complete character assassination for asking her (nicely I thought) if she’d please go up stairs so I could help her wash (she’d been sat on the sofa for a good 10 minutes after I got there, not moving, but insisting she wanted to wash). We only got half an hour with for each service user and it was a weekend, so I was pretty much back to back with calls. That one really upset me as she was known to be very difficult, but we had got on well up until that point when she just turned on me.

We also used to have an amazingly grumpy lady. She was in her 90s and had a mild dementia. But she’d throw things at the carers, when you served her food she’d tell you it looked like the leftovers from the zoo. She’d just be rude and unpleasant from the moment you arrived to the moment you left. She didn’t bother me in the slightest. She was just as grumpy with everyone, so I knew it was nothing personal

Sending some love to all you NHS people who look after us every day, whether holding a frightened patient’s hand or saving a life. Most of us think you’re brilliant. To hell with the rude ones - they don’t deserve you. Xx

I don't understand saying someone is whitest and OP can't help as you don't say what the issue was that brought you to tears

Substitute the word blackest, do you understand now?

I suspect human patients are like caged dogs. Some fear bite. Some whine continually. Some come up to the door for attention. Some need a rabies pole around the neck.

OP I second the 'do not put yourself down" post. As Madonna said..."Express yourself!" ( or was that song about breast feeding?!)

I was a psych care assistant in a high security hospital. So to be fair these guys were very unwell. However I was on the elderly ward for a month and these guys tended to become very honest about their crimes/offences (almost all rape, paedophilia or murder) because of dementia etc and lowered inhibitions.

Im a sexual abuse survivor but I normally had a good filter for what they'd come out with. But this one fella I'd never been on 1:1 with really went to town. We were understaffed so I had no choice but to sit and listen to him as he needed constant obs because he was a lt risk of falls. He spent the whole 30 minutes talking about how when a man is trying to fu* a woman she should just take it. Then no one gets hurt. He kept on about how women are subordinate whores, just holes to fu* and that they should be killed after their prime is over and all this crap. After the 30 minutes was up I asked for an immediate transfer to another ward because that ward was always understaffed and although the younger patients had done equally awful things and were equally unwell they had less of a tendency to talk about their offences graphically. I don't know how I lasted as long as I did in that job!!!

op don't feel you have to justify a natural reaction by saying it's hormones or whatever. We're all human and we all have limits.

(Forgot to add, this wasnt nhs, it was private and there was a lot of pressure not to make a fuss about incidents including being assaulted which happened a lot as most of them were so unwell and prone to violence. Shoddy in hindsight and I should've left earlier).

Im not a HCP but during a stay in hospital in 2017 I have witnessed horrifically rude people and was amazed the nurses weren’t in tears after one particularly bad episode .
It wasn’t even from the patrimony but from their relatives.

I also know a paramedic and the stories they tell me sound horrific.

I also have a relative who is a terrible patient. Unfortunately always in and out of hospital.
She is so horrible towards the HCP.

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.

Every MH Trust says 'zero tolerance', but in practice this is pretty meaningless. Often our patients are abusive because they are unwell and genuinely can't help it, so what do you do? You (rightly) can't prosecute someone without capacity so what is left? Use an inappropriately restrictive practice as a punishment? Nah. It just is what it is.

I'm a mental health nurse too, verbal abuse comes with the job, as does the odd assault. What I have found difficult is that when a patient does have capacity and is violent the police will not act, even when the patient's consultant records they had capacity. The police are overwhelmed with work and look for reasons to drop cases. So if anyone is in hospital they can assault staff with impunity. Someone strangled me once, she had capacity but the police dropped it. She laughed about it months later.

I work in home care and have found several elderly ex-colonial types to be breath-takingly rude. One informed me staff were only allowed to use the toilet out back because her personal one couldn't be soiled by all and sundry, another requested no black carers for food prep as she didn't trust their hygiene. I also listen to umpteen complaints about bad grammer/accents/handwriting and how common all these girls are. They always get so surprised when I challenge these attitides and almost all come back with "oh not you dear, you're much more our sort of people" (white, well spoken, boarding school and university educated)

I can't stand the blatant disrespect for people who are doing a difficult job for low pay but will be supporting them in their times of greatest need.

@WaitrosesCheapestVodka
I know what you mean. It was more seen as "it comes with the job" when I was working as a staff nurse on a busy acute inpatient ward as same thing happened there. I've had several assaults but they was deemed not to have capacity..so I never took it further.
As a cpn we have verbal abuse quite a lot, and have the odd assault.
We send letters to inform of zero tolerance if individuals have behaved inappropriately..
During an assessment we had a table thrown at us..(had capacity) therefore a letter was sent as a first warning..and was warned if they presented like that again in the future we wouldn't see them again..
So yeah I feel it's harder on the wards as it's acute..

I received a life changing diagnosis by overhearing two nurses gossiping about me, by name, on the other side of my hospital curtain. Within earshot of other patients too.

That was pretty fucking nasty.

It would have been traumatic if they'd told me decently to my face, but I've never really recovered from learning of it like that.

I do not forgive them.

Isn't it expected that some will not cope and will verbally lash out, or get shitty at times?

Being scared or in pain doesn't mean that people lose the ability of treating people with respect. It's a choice, and should be punished accordingly if you ask me.

Dementia, being confused or having a low blood sugar can make people aggressive without them understanding what they are doing. That cannot be helped unfortunately.

My dad was held hostage at gunpoint for about 17 hours by a patient...! We laugh about it now but it was worrying at the time.

i also listen to umpteen complaints about bad grammer/accents/handwriting

I fear for HCP who have to deal with the most strident MNetters pedants if they get dementia.

Mine was when I worked on a psychiatric ICU when I was heavily pregnant and a patient told me she was going to punch me in the stomach and make me lose the baby. She had capacity. So I am afraid that I leaned in close to her and told her that it would be the last thing that she ever did. I am not proud of that, but having my baby threatened was horrifying. I honestly think I would have gone for her like a mad woman if she had touched me.

A patient saved up his poo and wee and threw it at nurses that walked by. He got red carded by the hospital.

Another patient told medical professionals that their parents are 'probably very disappointed' with the way they've turned out, (consultants, nurses, physios - everyone who happened to be around)

Its actually very rare to get a utterly vile patient though, most are nice people.