AIBU to wonder WTF has happened to nursing “care” in our NHS?

[AnnieGetYourPun]

And don’t tell me it’s all Covid/staff shortages/staff illness related.

My niece was eventually admitted to hospital after being sent home twice from A&E (in agony) and is now on a gynae ward. It’s just her and an elderly lady on the ward. The elderly lady was getting agitated as she needed the toilet. The nurse came and said, and I quote “it’s alright, use your pad and we’ll come and sort you out later”. This has really upset my niece who’s dodging sepsis now, on the ward, on massive IV antibiotics/anti-emetics and IV analgesia. She has narrowly avoided a ruptured uterus as there was no one to do a scan on her, after a 12 hr wait in A&E. She is 32.

Nurses now... all of ‘em have degrees. All dead clever. Very few of them have an ounce of “caring” in them.

Fry me on here. I’m past fucking caring.

Should add. I trained in the NHS. Was a student/junior staff nurse/senior staff nurse/junior sister and G grade senior sister before retirement. Never, in my f***g life have I seen such lack of basic care and maintenance of human dignity than I have witnessed in NHS hospitals, in the past two years.

Shove your clapping and rainbows.

@HollysBush

I’m not that nurse so can’t comment on them. But I’ve been caring my socks of for the past 7 hours, Thankyou very much.

Same here.

I was in hospital a few weeks ago and I saw exactly how lovely and caring the nurses were.

You don't know everything about a person - for example the lady next to me asked to go to the toilet all the time - but she had a catheter!! After many times they just told her it was ok to go, and this meant the lady was much more relaxed knowing that it was ok.

I can't do their job, I don't think I would even last an hour. They do an amazing job.

YABU to generalise one bad experience (not even your own) to all nurses. Your niece should submit a complaint to PALS about her concerns.

There's definitely two sides to every story

I'm an NHS nurse. With a degree. I've been a nurse for 27 years. I work with some wonderful, hardworking and extremely caring nurses. I also work with some lazy, uncaring nurses who don't seem to like people at all. I imagine this is the case in most jobs.

It's not about degrees, it's about a culture of not seeing patients as human beings who are affected by how staff behave towards them. Patients are treated as objects with dignity and consent disregarded as inconvenient.

Of course there are some good nurses, but it's patent nonsense to claim "every single one" treats patients decently. There is no profession where "every single" worker is beyond reproach .

I've been in and out of hospital for years now and the shitty "care" is not the exception.

18 months ago one in A&E would take me seriously with my 83 year old DM. 3 times i took her in with terrible symptoms of what turned out to be a serious Campylobacter infection, begging for help, and 3 times they sent us home saying just keep taking imodium. This was 3 weeks of shitting herself. The bed. The house. She was dehydrated, undernourished, and incontinent with the infection and unable to walk. They did fuck all for us.

When she was finally admitted (thank you locum GP) she was in for 6 weeks.

During that time the hospital rang us at one point at 2 am to say come in she's dying and when we got there (one and a half hours frantic drive in tears) no one had a clue who'd rung us, she was fine and fast asleep No apology. No explanation. Just a lot of shrugging. I didn't have the time or energy to complain at that point.

DM was bullied quite badly by a male nurse while she was recovering as well. I did complain about that.

So yeah. Mixed feelings here.

The NHS is very much one of two extremes these days - either truly brilliant or 'dear god, did that just ACTUALLY happen???'

Between two parents with numerous health issues including dementia I've seen both ends of the spectrum: my mum discharged from A&E with just a strip of tablets cut from a pack from the medicine cabinet on the ward (she has severe Alzheimer's but because she can walk and tell them how many sugars she'd like in her tea everyone over estimates her capacity).

When my dad was dying mum was taken to see him. The team were told she had low capacity to which they said 'oh ok, thanks for telling us' then proceeded to speak to her using medical terminology as if she had capacity.

But I've cried on the shoulders of nurses who have taken time out of their schedule to sit with me on more than one occasion.

It's quite common for a person to need two people to assist them to the toilet if they are unsteady on their feet. It's also common for people with a UTI to have a constant feeling of urgently needing to urinate, even if their bladder is empty.

It's a shame if your niece was upset, but she has no idea about the woman's needs or why the nurse didn't immediately assist her to the toilet.

With a nursing background, I would have thought you would understand that. But instead you decide to start a nurse bashing, goady thread...🤔

I've experienced both. Some definitely weren't rushed off their feet but had no bedside manner at all. It's a place you go when you're vulnerable and need kindness! Shout out to all the lovely nurses 🌹

The thing is nurses are all portrayed as 'angels' but like every single other group of workers whether it be teachers, plumbers or shop assistants they can vary.

So some will be excellent. some reasonable and some in the wrong profession.

@AnnieGetYourPun let’s hope you’ve got off your retired arse and are helping out in this pandemic.

The length of people's shifts is not relevant. Working a 13 hour shift is not proof that during that time patients aren't being dehumanised and degraded by the staff member's conduct.

"I work long shifts so you can't criticise poor care you've witnessed or experienced"?? What kind of argument is that?

I'm a nurse.

If I'm looking after 14 patients (or more), and one of them needs time critical IV antibiotics for sepsis (like your niece) then I will prioritise that over taking someone to the toilet.

It's not nice and I hate doing it, but until we get more staff, or I figure out how to clone myself so I can be in two places at once, I'm not sure what the solution is.

I trained 30 years ago and there were examples of bad care on the wards then. I suspect there are far more examples now due to people living longer with more complex co-morbidities, even less staff and staff performing many roles the junior doctors used to do.
So not so much that nurses are less caring now, but no doubt have less time to care. Long before Covid.

Well I hope you didn't swear like that when you were nursing.

My son is a nurse, he was in management but resigned, took a pay cut, back on shifts to do his bit on covid. Got covid as his reward. So shove your opinions where you shoved the clapping and rainbows

Nurses have always given medication, changed dressings, monitored patients alongside helping them to eat, drink, wash, go to the toilet. Some of us even still make beds

Yes I’m sure it was a nurse’s fault that no one was available to scan your niece in a&e.

DFO

I'm a nurse myself and have experienced horrific care on a gynae ward. It was notorious within our trust as being awful but I thought it was just nasty gossip, until I was admitted.

I was admitted needing urgent IV fluids. I was checked on once after the nurse put me in the room in the morning. They didn't even start the already prescribed fluids.

Two sisters from my ward arrived in the evening to visit find me unconscious and unresponsive, one of them pulled the emergency bell and nobody came, she went to find someone and found three nurses in the kitchen making themselves drinks.

By the time I was treated and had a clue what was going on the matron from my own unit had arrived as well and a massive complaint went in.

we (my dh and I ) have been "secret shoppers" at a hospital for the last 6 months (long story). We should probably write a book about it. Unfortunately I would have to say that the majority of nursing staff in particular were poor. Its very sad

I think one example is not reflective on the profession as a whole and your past experiences in nursing should tell you that.

My sister sadly died at a young age a couple of years ago from Cancer. Agree we saw the very best and worst of nursing care.
One nurse made her cry, a week before she died. We put a complaint in and there was a huge fuss and we received an apology from the head of nursing at the hospital (who was lovely) so yes mixed feelings about care, but it’s like any job like someone mentioned earlier, you just get the odd bad apple.
You have to be some kind of bitch though to make a terminally ill woman cry 😢

I had truly awful care after DC2 - treated as a massive inconvenience, no compassion at all, couldn’t understand why those on duty at the time wanted to be in the profession despite clearly disliking having anything to do with post-partum mum

Oh good a nurse bashing thread