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?

@RedRageRestful

Hmm when idiots were clapping in lockdown, I was rembering some of my time in hospitals. Night time on a children’s ward with my 4 year old daughter, other sick children and babies, and the raucous night staff, running and laughing in the hall way all night, playing games. I hated them all, and we got no sleep. 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. The day shift were fabulous, the night shift, foul people who should have been sacked.

I hope you complained to PALS about a nurse keeping your daughter alive with her medication!!!

@Jannt86

'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 ...

Being busy is one thing. But if they have time to come over and shout at patients, they have time to look after patients. Just because you haven't seen it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. There are some absolutely shocking nurses out there. It was months before I stopped having nightmares about the way I was treated. And worse - having to lie there helplessly watching other patients being treated in such disgusting ways I could cry just thinking about it. To this day I'm terrified of being admitted to hospital. That's not right.

So much defensiveness from nurses here. Perhaps that's part of the problem, seeing themselves as above criticism. I know that being a nurse is not an easy job and most nurses are run off their feet. But that doesn't negate the experiences of patients who've experienced poor care and, yes lazy nurses.

My friend is a nurse and while she is extremely caring and hard working she tells me that she's appalled at how lazy some of her colleagues are and that they don't do their job as well as they should be.

I've also experienced very poor nursing care. Lazy, uncaring, dangerous and negligent. Ive even experienced nurses lying on my notes to cover up their poor care. I've also experienced amazing nurses who go above and beyond and made a really difficult time so much easier.

It's not nurse bashing to talk about bad experiences you've had with nurses. The nurses coming on here all indignant are not helping. You should be listening to patients' experiences rather than dismissing them. This is the attitude that underlies some of the problems.

One of many reasons I chose a home birth. I knew I was safer.

I told the nurse I was cold(sat in a chair) old later in a chair pulled her dirty sheet off her bed and wrapped it around herself. Crap nurse said she wasnt cold and walked off. High dependency ward

[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]
Which I do, thank you very much. Also just to correct you seeing as you're wrong - no, my breaks aren't paid and I have very often gone without them to care for patients.

Red button.

Bad police officers.
Bad teachers.
Bad nurses.
Bad doctors.

Just like there are good ones.

I was refused pain killers by ‘busy nurses’ who were on their phones metres away from my bed talking loudly through the night - and they were messing around. Deference to nurses because they demand it as a profession is ridiculous.

I phoned a family relative - as I couldn’t get out of bed and my call button went unanswered I like most patients was vulnerable hence being in hospital - a nurse had rudely told me the next shift would get my medication as they were busy.

Family relative just happened to be a consultant in the hospital and working and she came pounding down the corridor - you should of seen their horror as they scattered back to their duties and said relative demanded all patients were given painkillers and checked. Relative who was a consultant made a complaint as well. Sometimes a bad one makes a bad two and that can create a bad culture in ANY profession but nurses like doctors are not prefect.

If you are great at your job - great. But call out those that aren’t and don’t defend them - root out the problem from within.

Please don’t use the NAOUALT - not all of us are like that argument. Some are. Support the patient support what’s right.

@Armadeus

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.

Op in a maternity, unwell, been awake for hours finally got some rest?

I agree that the problem is we can't say that some nurses are lazy disinterested and uncaring. In my experience I used to try and wait until a shift change, some were honestly angels in uniform, however a reasonable amount were downright unkind

@MerryPoppings

So much defensiveness from nurses here. Perhaps that's part of the problem, seeing themselves as above criticism. I know that being a nurse is not an easy job and most nurses are run off their feet. But that doesn't negate the experiences of patients who've experienced poor care and, yes lazy nurses.

My friend is a nurse and while she is extremely caring and hard working she tells me that she's appalled at how lazy some of her colleagues are and that they don't do their job as well as they should be.

I've also experienced very poor nursing care. Lazy, uncaring, dangerous and negligent. Ive even experienced nurses lying on my notes to cover up their poor care. I've also experienced amazing nurses who go above and beyond and made a really difficult time so much easier.

It's not nurse bashing to talk about bad experiences you've had with nurses. The nurses coming on here all indignant are not helping. You should be listening to patients' experiences rather than dismissing them. This is the attitude that underlies some of the problems.

The defensiveness isn't defensiveness of what the OP said or against any other experience that has been relayed here. The defensiveness is against what other posters have said about nurses doing nothing except tiktok dances and messing around on social media rather than working. Which is absolute nonsense.

Post on their fb page and contact the ceo on twitter

That'll do it

I wouldnt let some nurses look after a dog frankly

If you can get up (as people are suggesting), why are you pressing the call button?

Maternity wards are just awful. Underfunded and underresourced. I had to call my husband back to the hospital at 6 am as no one was coming to my bed (I think I was put in a side ward after a torrid labour and retained placenta) and I couldn't reach my daughter. The next time I went to hospital I bought a bag of snacks with me and was more mentally prepared but it was still awful. The nurses themselves were on the whole really kind and helpful when I saw them but they were just stretched between patients.

@Sarahcoggles

If you can get up (as people are suggesting), why are you pressing the call button?

She has a high heart rate, perhaps advised not to get up.

I always take my own drinks and snacks when I’ve gone in.

I'm wondering if this is my local hospital. I'd take my chances giving birth In a cardboard box in the car park before I'd let them near me.

Once you have that belt on you fail to exist as a person they look at a print out that's it.

Despite the complications I'd had they ignored me the whole time. The only person to talk to me was the one taking the dinner order. Whilst I was in labour having been ignored and unable to access any pain relief . They only shifted their arses when they realised they'd missed a partial placental.abruption.

Theh it was all rush rush rush down to delivery prep fir surgery just in case.

Then staff all fucked off again and I very nearly had her on my own. Luckily xp had just made it there to get help for me or I'd have been fucked.

Hope you're ok op.

You've probably (I'd bloody hope) been seen to now. My dd gave birth in January and the 3 days leading up to the birth were awful for her. Left in pain, no buzzer answered, no water... it got so bad my other dd rang the ward and told them to send someone to her. That worked thankfully. I'd had to do the same last summer after being admitted I was left for hours and hours with no drink and in agony.

And both my daughters are nurses themselves. Maternity services are scarily stretched it's terrifying.

Good luck with your baby x

@Sarahcoggles

If you can get up (as people are suggesting), why are you pressing the call button?

Because even if she might be able to get up she might have been told not to and to use the button?

@RedRageRestful

Hmm when idiots were clapping in lockdown, I was rembering some of my time in hospitals. Night time on a children’s ward with my 4 year old daughter, other sick children and babies, and the raucous night staff, running and laughing in the hall way all night, playing games. I hated them all, and we got no sleep. 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. The day shift were fabulous, the night shift, foul people who should have been sacked.

How dare that male nurse wake your daughter and ensure that her medication is taken regularly, as indicated, to stop her from deteriorating further. He should have just done what most of those pesky, lazy nurses do and not bothered making sure that medications were given in a timely manner, as prescribed and allowed her to deteriorate instead

@Sarahcoggles

If you can get up (as people are suggesting), why are you pressing the call button?

Oh yes why didn't she think if that! Ffs how obtuse and condescending.

This happened to me and DD was almost born on the ward. I told them i labour quick and its ramped up and i was asking for light pain relief, i pressed the buzzer, no one came, we pressed again, another midwife said she would go get mine, no one came, we pressed again because i was starting to get desperate and i got given paracetamol and she disappeared again to go get my midwife...who you guessed it, never came. By the time she got to me 4 hours later, she was able to tell me DD had hair! And the last hour id been trying to be quiet whilst in active labour because theyd put someone else on the ward and i didnt want an audience!

I’m still confused. OP has said she’s got up a few times to ask the nurses to respond to the call button. Why not get some water while she’s up?

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

This. The red button isn't for someone to get you a drink. I had to press it when i had a cord prolapse. Yes that midwife moved fucking fast and she saved my baby's life.

@forlornlorna OP has said she’s got up a few times.

Cannot believe someone's moaning about a nurse waking her up to give her child medicine.

@Jannt86

'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 ...

I think you're wrong to discount complaints as misguided just as others are wrong to blame all nurses.

There will be many hospitals where nurses are overstretched and that is why care falls below what is good enough. There will be many hospitals where nurses manage excellent care regardless. But there will also be hospitals where there are nurses who are just not very good at their job/don't care and aren't doing what they should be. Sometimes that is in the context of an environment/culture of similar behaviour from others. If someone is complaining about being laughed at or shouted at by a nurse for pissing themselves, for example, that is poor care and absolutely that nurse's fault irrespective of whether it is because she or he is overworked or understaffed or stressed or just incompetent.

My point is, there will be complaints that are not fair and complaints that are absolutely fair. There will be ineffective people who are nurses just as there are in all professions. There will be toxic workplace cultures resulting in poor work just as there are in other professions.

Noone should be saying all nurses are awful just as noone should be saying no nurses are.

I have had excellent care from midwives but also have had care which has fallen under par in a context where even if the behaviour is due to being understaffed it is not excusable (way spoken to and treated by individuals in the team, where others managed to behave professionally). I have had friends who have had amazing experiences and others who have had to complain to PALs due to how awfully they were treated.

And I have family members and friends who are nurses/doctors/paramedics so I understand the pressures but amazingly they all manage to give good care albeit in an overstretched underfunded system. Yes not always as good as they would like if stretched but they arent rude or negligent.