Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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!

268 replies

Bellad19 · 23/02/2020 23:31

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!!

OP posts:
Lonecatwithkitten · 25/02/2020 19:45

I was assisting a patient on to the scales when she bit me. I ended up in A&E with a tendon sheath infection. She was a cat - still Healthcare.
Large numbers of my patients try to injure me on a daily basis from the over enthusiastic EBT who head butts me with their skull of concrete to the banshee cat who goes at me with four sets of claws and a set of teeth. Not forgetting the owners who abuse me on a regular basis for being only being in it for the money - if I was only in it for the money I would be an accountant or investment banker I could have easily done both.

Carriemac · 25/02/2020 19:50

a colleague was scanning a lady for early miscarriage and the patient's partner stole her mobile phone. it was in fact , the on call phone so had to be in the room with her and essential for her work . some people are scum.

NotAnothetOne · 25/02/2020 20:23

I have worked in healthcare for 30+ years and have seen and heard it all (although I still get gobsmacked by some of the things we hear).

People seem to forget that the Public Health Service is staffed by people who (generally speaking) are doing their beat in often difficult circumstances. It is a broken system that relies on the goodwill of the staff to alway go the extra mile (and they do because that's the sort of people who go into healthcare).

Peanutbutterbean · 25/02/2020 20:52

Some awful stories here. Personally speaking I can’t rate the level of care received by my family members and myself highly enough. Flowers

@Lonecatwithkitten, what’s an EBT please? I have googled it but all I get is an ‘Electronic Bank Transfer’ Smile

BillywigSting · 25/02/2020 21:12

I work in a care home with some residents with pretty severe dementia.

Quite a few of them don't have capacity anymore and can be seriously unpleasant. I got punched in the face last week by one of them while I was washing them but it's pretty much par for the course.

There's another who tries to flash anyone and everyone (we're trying to get him moved as it's mixed residence he really needs to be in single sex but there just aren't any places).

Agree with pp, sometimes the relatives are much worse, at least they know what they're doing, they have no excuse.

WonkyDonk87 · 25/02/2020 21:13

English Bull Terrier?

I'm going to go against the grain here. I do find it upsetting when we are held responsible for the harm or death of patients. I find it upsetting because it highlights the impossible standards we are held to by the public. I cannot 'save' my patients. I can give them the best treatment we have available, as long as they will/can accept it... but it isn't perfect. And they can refuse. And they have the free will to do so. (I'm referring to capacitious people before you jump on me about MH/detained patients).

NearlyGranny · 25/02/2020 21:13

You know what, Peanut, I'm guessing English bull terrier, because we're in vet territory and Kitten says it has a concrete skull! I wonder if it's that, or it might be a real bull of some sort if she does large animals, too! 🐂

Peanutbutterbean · 25/02/2020 21:16

Ah of course! Thanks @NearlyGranny and @WonkyDonk87.

GinIsIn · 25/02/2020 21:22

A charming older woman, who was perfectly able bodied, called repeatedly demanding an ambulance or at the very least a paid for taxi to convey her to her very routine clinic check up. I declined to provide a chauffeur service, to which she called me every name under the sun and announced she was coming to the hospital right then to shit in my office. I said I was pleased to hear she was indeed capable of making her own way to hospital, and suggested she did it the following Thursday instead when she could combine it with attending her appointment.

JonnyPocketRocket · 25/02/2020 21:27

Do you apply the same criteria to women in labour?

Amongst my midwife friends (my work brings me peripherally into contact with maternity services but I don't have contact with patients), they've been bitten, slapped with an open hand, had their hair pulled, and been repeatedly kicked in the stomach when heavily pregnant by women in labour. Women shouldn't get a free pass because they're in pain.

dottiedodah · 25/02/2020 21:28

Well I think these comments are appalling! Whenever any of us here are in need of medical help ,we are at pains to be polite ,respectful and bloody grateful TBH!

BlueChangling · 25/02/2020 21:35

I just want to say thanks to all the NHS workers on here who have put up with bullsh*t from people. I appreciate the extremely hard job you do

whoknows2017 · 25/02/2020 21:39

You Guys do the absolute greatest job on this Earth and I have the greatest admiration for the 99.99% of Nurses/Health Care Workers - when I was in Hospital earlier this/last year for 4 months - I was looked after and cherished for most the time....

However , there was one incident when I had a catheter inserted and was suffering from Sepsis (I also have ulcerative colitis). The insertion of the tube was not right but despite my best efforts to talk to this Nurse and say that I thought that the catheter was not quite right - it drew a blank. She seemed to think that I was talking rubbish - she was in charge ...

So to try to help and alleviate the uncomfortable situation and pain that I was in I was constantly pressing down on my public bone . I called her over again and I expressed that I thought that this was really not quite right. She caught sight of my hand over my "bits" and was told to "not play with myself" !!!

It transpired that I had over 1+ litre of fluid backing up ..... thank goodness some of the other Nurses were a little sympathetic and managed to rectify the situation - luckily I only lost the only kidney..

But thank you guys again - 99.99999999999999999999% of you are fantastic is it only the smallest little fraction that should have chosen another profession..

TheBigFatMermaid · 25/02/2020 22:11

You really do have to learn not to take it personally.

I worked mainly in elderly care, after a few years at the beginning of my working life working in a big Victorian psychiatric hospital.

Loads of times the psych patients would be horrible. I could understand that. The relatives were awful though. I remember one in particular who used to berate us for abusing her sister, when her sister was accusing us of the same things she had accused us of. You'd think she might have realised ALL the allegations were false!

I was only 17 when I started and I got sent to try to get a man up from one of the dorms in a distant wing. He tried to drag me in to bed with him.

I've had all the usual biting, scratching, hitting... Mainly from little old ladies with dementia. That's fine and easy to duck away from.

Lonecatwithkitten · 25/02/2020 22:16

@Peanutbutterbean EBT -English bull terrier adorable bulldozers with solid blocks of concrete for head/brains. If you are not carefully in their enthusiasm for life they will head butt you.
It is a rare year that I don't A&E due to the actions of one of my patients.

OhTheRoses · 25/02/2020 22:23

Fail to understand why nurses can't ensure the information they give is accurate; and why if it might be inaccurate they cannot give a caveat.

If a nurse tells me x will be done on y date, it isn't unreasonable to expect that to be so.

If incorrect information is given and if that incorrect information means an alternate is declined then the nurse responsible is responsible for the fact that care is sub-optimal. If the care or lack of it results in detriment then the nurse should accept responsibility or be held accountable.

That's what being a member of a profession means.

The problem with mh care is that all too often nurses are the final arbiter rather than drs. When my dc broke an arm or a leg an orthopaedic dr was consulted and examined them in person. When my d's mind was broken the only way possible to access a suitably qualified doctor was to pay. The suitably qualifued psychiatrist offered the correct treatment, medication and a diagnosis. The nurses she could see on the nhs were unable to support her or to facilitate a diagnosis. It really really had more to do with competence than resources.

However, such empathy on this thread and if nurses are not and cannot be held accountable for their actions, especially when is not able to see an actual dr in CAMHS, it is no wonder that mh services for young people are so utterly deplorable.

TitianaTitsling · 25/02/2020 22:26

Also re the 'im going private, the service here is shit'... Well if it goes tits up with your private op, you do realise they'll rush you back to the NHS?

literalsunshine · 25/02/2020 22:53

@OhTheRoses because it's the NHS's fault your DD was unwell 🙄
Really annoys me when people expect the red carpet from the nhs for in most cases a medical/mental illness that's not the nhs fault!

Patroclus · 25/02/2020 23:28

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

That reminds me of something I read the other day from WWII US servicemens letters he said ''one thing I noticed is that here in England they dont have a color barrier (i.e racial segregation), they must be pretty ignorant''

Its so ingrained in some people that certain things are fact to them and their behaviour is normal to them as a result.

Patroclus · 25/02/2020 23:54

Ive only just heard about these people, Wineis. Never encountered them in all my year of addiction and it fascinates me. What sort of thing do they say to try and get opiates? why dont they just buy heroin?

BitOfFun · 25/02/2020 23:59

I'm not an HCP, just a frequent flyer lately! I think the workers in the NHS are bloody fantastic.

The meanest patient I ever encountered on a ward was an older lady in the bed opposite. I appreciate she was scared and ill, but LORDY how she moaned at anything and everything. I was really pissed off when I heard her complaining to her visitors that I wasn't being sufficiently entertaining. I was fucking sick!!

SirChing · 26/02/2020 00:01

The nurses she could see on the nhs were unable to support her or to facilitate a diagnosis. It really really had more to do with competence than resources

What huge, contradictory statements. Only Dr's can diagnose. They often consult with nurses to get their opinion as to what is wrong, but the diagnosis rests with the Doctor. If there is no Doctor (a resource) there is no diagnosis. What has that to do with the Nurse's competence?

Also, no-one is saying that you weren't right to be angry about what happened. Most of us would be too. But the best way to get people to work with you is NOT to make claims which are demonstrably untrue and which will have no impact at all e.g. telling a nurse you would hold her responsible for your DDs death.

A complaint via PALS would actually have had some impact. The nurse would have been investigated and steps taken to identify what went wrong and how it happened, to prevent the same thing happening again. THAT'S how to appropriately respond to anger and actually get somewhere. If a formal complaint had gone in, the nurse would have shit herself and been much more careful in future.

Sadly, when people's understandable anger leads them to make comments which attempt to invoke fear and intimidation, MH nurses immediately emotionally shut off. We are trained to do that, or we couldn't deal with very unwell patients who may be angry for illogical reasons. If we didn't shut off, we wouldn't be able to avoid taking it personally, and that may then affect the quality of care we are able to deliver to that patient. But BECAUSE we have empathy, we know the patient can't help it, so we close down our emotions and just deal with stuff, so we can still care and help the patient without feeling angry with them.

Unless you have done the job, you have precisely ZERO idea of what we need to do to maintain our own mental health AND our ability to provide compassionate care. We aren't there to deal with ridiculous comments made by families. We would always help them make a formal complaint though. So take whichever tack you want, but your approach didn't exactly work did it?

Festivecheer26 · 26/02/2020 00:03

@literal she isn’t blaming the NHS for her daughters illness though? It sounds like issues with the treatment and it’s not wrong to want an effective and efficient treatment plan?

PanamaPattie · 26/02/2020 00:11

As far as MW are concerned, if you attempt a VE without getting consent, I’m not at all surprised that women fight back.

anon2020202020 · 26/02/2020 00:16

I've not had a patient be vile, their family members can be though.

Swipe left for the next trending thread