Nobody answering the call nurse button.

[peachy3]

Not really an AIBU, posting here for traffic, just want to know if anyone else has been in this place and what myself or one of the other patients can do?

I’m currently admitted in hospital with an infection and high heart rate that isn’t coming down. Im on the Labour ward as I’m 36 weeks pregnant. There’s only 4 of us in this room and a few people in another room down the hall. I’ve tried to use my call nurse button a few times but it’s not been making any sound. I brought it up to one nurse who said she’ll be back with a replacement over an hour ago, spoke to another nurse who said the first nurse was sorting it and spoke to a third nurse who said she’ll go find out about it but nobody has come back. I’m in no way bashing the nurses or angry at them at all, they could have been called away to something important, but the woman next to me has pressed her button for me which works and nobody is coming in. It’s been a few hours now, I did go out a few times but was told someone would be coming in now and then nothing. I’ve decided to just wait it out a bit but the lady opposite me has been ringing her button, she’s currently having contractions, and nobody has been coming in. Her button works as it’s making the noise it should but no one is coming in to see her. I’m of course not a nurse but I’ve heard a lot of laughter and chatting out in the hallway which makes it seem like we’re being ignored. Is there anything I should do? I’m the only one not in labour so I don’t mind going out to say something but I also don’t want to sound terrible and entitled, I know how hard nurses work and would never disrespect them.

Any suggestions?

'A horrible male nurse woke my daughter every couple of hours to take inhalers, nebuliser I think, I was a bit scared of him, horrible man.'

I mean - you must realize how ridiculous this sounds. Do you think he did it for shits and giggles? And not, say, as a clinical necessity? And if it every two hours, sounds like he was pretty Johnny-on-th-spot nurse, and not a cackling 'What's the time, Mr Wolf?' champion.

It's also absurd that people on this thread are having a pop at nurses and not expecting them to respond: defending oneself from an attack is a pretty time-honoured response. You say you haven't asked for an apology - big of you - but you want them to 'listen' instead of 'challenge' you. How ill-mannered and patronising. You don't get to decide that. Jog on.

I've come across some bloody awful nurses, including one who castigated me for pissing the bed when I was still numb and painful from 3rd/4th degree tears, an epidural, and a subsequent blood patch. I'd waited for around 40 minutes for a bedpan and couldn't even feel the sensation of weeing until it was too late, anyway. I still think of her and hope she developed trimethylaminura, or something. Witch. But even I don't think nurses go around merrily eating biscuits and disabling alarms. Do me a favour. It's a hard job in an underfunded area.

@Angrymum22

Press the red button behind your bed. You will have never seen them move so fast.

this has made me laugh , my mum was in a ward with an old dear with senile demetia next to her , one afternoon the old dear was waving her arms around at me and obviously wanting assistance , she had tried pressing the button bless her and no one was coming and she was getting agitated , not knowing what the red button was for i pressed the bloody thing and lo and behold , alarms started going off and 2 seconds later a whole team of nurses and docters plus a crash cart came barreling through the door , i had to madly wave my arms around and say id made a mistake , id only meant to try and get her help , it was soo embarresing and the rest of the ward was in fits of laughter

I'm a midwife, I'd say a pretty young ish midwife but with a strong sense of professionalism and not bringing the profession into disrepute. I 100% believe that the generation coming up through their training (18-22) are too reliant on social media and don't understand the pitfalls. I actually reported a student midwife to her university about a year ago due to putting inappropriate videos on social media, Tiktok specifically and the University had received other complaints from students in her cohort.

Not everyone spends their breaks putting up stupid videos, but I seriously wonder what goes through their heads sometimes when they do.

@Jannt86

The comtempt towards nursing staff on here is unbelievable. No nurse I've ever worked with would ever disable or ignore a call button. If they aren't answering it won't be because they're sat sipping a coffee or making a tiktok video it will be because they genuinely are busy seeing to other things. Welcome to the reality of our broken NHS. I can assure you that the staff looking after you are as upset about it as you are. Be angry if you need to be but please direct it at the right people. Oh and if the red button people are telling you to push is the emergency buzzer then please DON'T push it unless you believe there to be a genuine threat to life as this is what it's for. It's a seriously dick move, you'll get every doctor and nurse on the ward running to you within seconds and I promise you they won't thank you for it. Sorry you're having a hard time but please know that the nurses are lilely working as hard as they can

Absolutely this….I agree having to wait is very wrong but don’t slag off the nurses!! Not their fault they are so understaffed and am pretty sure they will admit to feeling unsafe ! Contact PALS

Ask to speak to nurse or coordinator on charge and that will sort it out .

People's experiences are their individual experiences. They have little idea what other pressure staff are under. In their mind there is only them who's on the ward. They are unaware of the woman at the other end of the ward having a massive post partum heamorrhage or the other woman who's baby is in distress and needs an emergency c-section. People are right to be unhappy with the state of our NHS but you're aiming your dissatisfaction at the wrong people. I work in healthcare and am seriously looking at moving to Aus/NZ because I'm tired of being so overworked I'm constantly exhausted and terrified I'm going to make a mistake and tired of being paid significantly less in this country for working in a broken system that will blame me if I mess up. This thread just proves how quickly people are willing to blame the well meaning people trying to keep the system afloat rather than the system itself and that's what's so depressing about it. We voted for it so hold the people we voted for accountable not the ordinary working people

Some nurses are good, some are crap! Occasionally you will get a shift of mainly crap ones resulting in poor care. It's not bashing all nurses to say it happened to you.

I've been very lucky and grateful to have always recieved brilliant care in hospital. My elderly Df on the other hand! He was an alcoholic and was mostly treated with contempt by nurses, doctors and gps. Every symptom, no matter how painful, was dismissed as a side effect of alcohol abuse. Turned out to be stage 4 cancer.

@bigyellowTpot….your reply proves how narrow minded and ignorant you are …bet you believe everything you read in DM as well !

@Jannt86

People's experiences are their individual experiences. They have little idea what other pressure staff are under. In their mind there is only them who's on the ward. They are unaware of the woman at the other end of the ward having a massive post partum heamorrhage or the other woman who's baby is in distress and needs an emergency c-section. People are right to be unhappy with the state of our NHS but you're aiming your dissatisfaction at the wrong people. I work in healthcare and am seriously looking at moving to Aus/NZ because I'm tired of being so overworked I'm constantly exhausted and terrified I'm going to make a mistake and tired of being paid significantly less in this country for working in a broken system that will blame me if I mess up. This thread just proves how quickly people are willing to blame the well meaning people trying to keep the system afloat rather than the system itself and that's what's so depressing about it. We voted for it so hold the people we voted for accountable not the ordinary working people

This is exactly the attitude I don't want to hear. It's not patients being selfish and thinking they are the only person on the ward. It's people being deliberately ignored, shouted at, left crying in their own shit, refused food, refused pain relief, laughed at and so on. And yes I've witnessed all of these things with my own eyes. It's not selfish to expect basic human kindness.

I spent 11days in hospital not birth related, 4days on high dependency. The 4 days were hell. One nurse bullied the others she treated the patients like crap, laughed when I was in pain. I lost it in the end and she sent me onto normal ward. Best nurses ever, really busy too but came when I needed them. I complained to pals months later when I was able. I spoke to a lady who underwent the same op. That sick bullying nurse
(me being nice)still at it. Good nurses are a god send but you do get lazy thoughtless insensitive ones too.

@Jannt86

People's experiences are their individual experiences. They have little idea what other pressure staff are under. In their mind there is only them who's on the ward. They are unaware of the woman at the other end of the ward having a massive post partum heamorrhage or the other woman who's baby is in distress and needs an emergency c-section. People are right to be unhappy with the state of our NHS but you're aiming your dissatisfaction at the wrong people. I work in healthcare and am seriously looking at moving to Aus/NZ because I'm tired of being so overworked I'm constantly exhausted and terrified I'm going to make a mistake and tired of being paid significantly less in this country for working in a broken system that will blame me if I mess up. This thread just proves how quickly people are willing to blame the well meaning people trying to keep the system afloat rather than the system itself and that's what's so depressing about it. We voted for it so hold the people we voted for accountable not the ordinary working people

You might want to speak to some of our healthcare workers over here in Aus before you make that decision......

As a nurse this infuriates but doesn’t surprise me.
Unfortunately a lot of people now in the caring profession don’t.

@peachy3

Also please mind my spelling and grammatical mistakes, it’s been a long one and I haven’t slept yet

*@peachy3*

Please do get in touch with PALS without delay.

I've done this on behalf of my mum when they'd lost her notes but were planning on going ahead with a minor but potentially risky procedure anyway. Mum has a complex medical history but plays it down when talking to Drs/Nurses, doesn't mention stuff etc.

I told the PALS lady that I'm sure she must be aware of various studies/inquests that showed that a large proportion of avoidable deaths at the hands of the NHS were the consequence a series of totally avoidable unfortunate minor events combining to cause a major event. She very much agreed, thanked me for calling and spent 36hrs tracking the missing notes down, after assuring me that the procedure would not be going ahead until they were found and consulted by the relevant individuals (although this being the behemoth of the NHS with constant hand-offs from 1 staff member to another, I didn't place any reliance on that assurance anyway).

I'm glad I was so interfering and I think you need to speak up in the same manner. Ignoring call bells could be just one of a sequence of "unfortunate" minor events which could lead to a tragedy sooner or later.

'This is exactly the attitude I don't want to hear. It's not patients being selfish and thinking they are the only person on the ward. It's people being deliberately ignored, shouted at, left crying in their own shit, refused food, refused pain relief, laughed at and so on. And yes I've witnessed all of these things with my own eyes. It's not selfish to expect basic human kindness'

Nowhere did I say it's selfish to expect good care. I said it's missguided to blame the overstretched frontline staff when they've been systematically forced to work in such dismal conditions. No nurse I've worked with would choose to ignore someone or leave them in pain or unclean. However one thing you can never train anyone to do is to be in two places at once ...

The responses of many nurses on this thread show exactly why this behaviour is allowed to continue. The entitlement and defensiveness is shocking. These are lived experiences of individual nurses letting patients down simply because they can.

Nurses + laughing and giggling at the nurses station + missing call bell+ OP who hasn't returned since early hours = a predictable goady thread.
Wonder where she is ? No doubt back soon to update us all.

Please don’t pull the crash alarm. It’s really not funny when people suggest doing this. When they actually need to be used it is terrifying. Yes people literally RUN thinking they need to save a life. The crash alarm was used for dd1 and I will never get over the trauma.

I am sorry they are ignoring you. I had a similar experience on postnatal in 2020. I agree with a complaint to pals, and going to the desk to wait.

@ManAlive24 I'll let you know in 12 hours how many patients I've let down. Finished at 8:30 last night about to go in now. I'll see if I can find OPs missing call bell.

[quote LoveFall]@TyrannosaurusRegina

I agree you are entitled to breaks, and within reason to do what you want.

But here's the thing. You are a healthcare professional. Your patients, and others on your unit rely on you and your professionalism to take care of them.

Your break is usually paid time and yes a break. But if you are needed for heaven's sake be there and provide the care you are trained to give.

I spent a week in hospital recently and I was frankly shocked at the noise coming from the nurses station at all hours. Lots of laughing. It became very clear to me what mattered and it wasn't the patients. It made me very, very sad. [/quote]
What a shitty response!

OP, you say you were tired and thirsty - you can clearly walk, so pop over to the sink and get yourself a drink. Then pop back into bed and get some sleep.
On Tuesday, my mum died in hospital. She had been admitted onto the assessment unit at 9am, having been on a trolley in A+E all night. As she’d been so unsettled, an HCP was with her all the time in A+E. on the assessment Unit, she was looked after very well - her words - the nurse in charge had to sit with her again when she received the news that she was dying, had to ring up my sister to let her know what was happening, had to try to resuscitate my mum when she collapsed and then had to phone me to tell me she’d died. She stayed on the phone with me for half an hour until my sister got to me as I was distraught and on my own. We then went to the hospital, met the same nurse (who’d been on duty since 8am ) she was so kind, she’d laid out our mum, sat with us, held our hand, hugged us when we cried. She talked about my mums last day and made us feel reassured that she hadn’t died in pain.

Nurses do so much more than we think. When we ring for a nurse, they may be saving someone else’s life, or telling a relative of a death, or just letting off steam before they too reach breaking point.

I for one have nothing but admiration for nurses.

You’ve been sent to the hospital because your GP is worried about you and your unborn baby.
Don’t be polite.
Your baby is at risk especially if you have no water- high blood pressure.
Please make them help you

[quote Armadeus]@ManAlive24 I'll let you know in 12 hours how many patients I've let down. Finished at 8:30 last night about to go in now. I'll see if I can find OPs missing call bell.[/quote]
Have a good day x

@ManAlive24

The responses of many nurses on this thread show exactly why this behaviour is allowed to continue. The entitlement and defensiveness is shocking. These are lived experiences of individual nurses letting patients down simply because they can.

Maybe you’d like to train to be a nurse then - you can show them all how it’s done.

[quote LoveFall]@TyrannosaurusRegina

I agree you are entitled to breaks, and within reason to do what you want.

But here's the thing. You are a healthcare professional. Your patients, and others on your unit rely on you and your professionalism to take care of them.

Your break is usually paid time and yes a break. But if you are needed for heaven's sake be there and provide the care you are trained to give.

I spent a week in hospital recently and I was frankly shocked at the noise coming from the nurses station at all hours. Lots of laughing. It became very clear to me what mattered and it wasn't the patients. It made me very, very sad. [/quote]
Exactly this. An absolute disgrace. It is a lottery if you get the care and people don't want to complain?? For gods sake, they get away with it because people don't complain nearly enough.

I'm just going through the PALS complaints procedure following the dreadful "care" of my daughter OP. The NHS right now is a shambles- partly I'm sure because of funding but largely because it seems that patient welfare rarely comes first at the moment.