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?

[quote Sarahcoggles]@forlornlorna OP has said she’s got up a few times.[/quote]
And still no one was about or came ... so she pressed the buzzer! Rightly fucking so.

Let's get something straight. You're given that buzzer and told to press it if you need assistance! She needs assistance! So she pressed it!

I wish people receiving poor care would stop not wanting to be a bother/not wanting to upset the nhs staff etc.

I have worked with amazing nurses and I've worked with poor nurses. Poor nurses should be called out on their bad practice. My previous ward people did wait a while for buzzers but it was a case of everyone buzzing at once and you had to prioritise.

Please escalate your complaint ask to speak to the senior charge nurse today. Please do not pull your emergency buzzer unless there is an immediate threat to life. Everyone on the ward has to leave what they are doing to attend potentially leaving someone else undignified in the middle of a procedure or leaving less staff to be dealing with a tricky situation making it less safe. I certainly wouldn't respond with laughter.

To give some background to life in the NHS right now most general medical wards right now have a ratio of 1 nurse to 17 patients, which is less than 4 minutes per hour per patient. If someone is unwell on bed 1 you would hopefully have no idea round in bed 16 but you might have to wait a bit longer than I would like. If I'm checking obs every 15 minutes, inserting a catheter, making up and administering 3 different IV antibiotics and getting more access to administer IV fluids at the same time and titration oxygen you can see that's going to take more than 4 minutes. That's why I would encourage you to escalate your complaint. Safer patient ratios would mean safer care and the more its escalated the better.

FWIW the only time I've ever had a complaint about taking too long with a cup of tea was when I was doing CPR on the bay across from the lady complaining. She knew exactly what was going on.

I know it’s probably silly to be so polite and quiet in these situations but I the last thing I want is to come across rude to the NHS staff.

This is the big problem with all of the rhetoric during the pandemic about frontline workers as superheroes and martyrs. Yes, many NHS staff have seen awful things (I know several who are so badly traumatised they may never be the same again) and they are badly stretched in understaffed, under-resourced conditions.

Nevertheless, they have a job to do. You are unwell and you and your baby need care. You can treat the staff with exactly the same human decency and politeness that I hope you would anyone but if you have an infection and a high heart rate then you need care. Don’t allow yourself or your baby to come to harm because you didn’t want to bother anyone.

Complain and don't worry about being seen as difficult. The care I received after my son was born premature and by c section was fucking shocking.
I had to go to the nurse's station once I could walk and 6 midwives were there doing nothing but had failed to answer the bell.
Perhaps they were on a break but surely they don't alll have a break at the same time?

Yep this happened to me after my cesarean. I had not managed to go for a wee after my catheter was taken out and my bladder almost burst which could have been fatal. It's only because I walked out there to the desk in my poor state with all the midwives sitting around chatting that they finally attended to me. Over 3 litres of urine had to be removed from my bladder. In hindsight I can't believe I felt guilty for being so assertive but lucky for me I did. The problem is you get institutionalised and always assume health professionals are looking out for you. But really you need to advocate for yourself. Not easy when you're in a vulnerable state without family around.

Sometimes you are that woman with a distressed baby who they are supposedly all helping. Except they're not.

The only reason I made it from the pre-natal to labour ward was because I lied and said I couldn't feel movements. For some reason, having had my waters go 24 hours before and had a pessary and a sweep, my being in labour was a surprise. I gave birth at 8pm and they said they hadn't been planning to check on me until 1am.

You aren't on the Sara ward at Addenbrooke's Cambridge, by any chance? I had an awful time there. Condescending, tactless staff, intrusive at times and unreachable at others.

It may have to do with there being so many different problems on pre- labour wards, and many patients just waiting stuff out, so nurses assume things aren't likely to be urgent.

Whatever it is, don't hesitate to be 'difficult'. Years later, I still regret not having stood up for myself more.

So many NHS staff defensively picking up on the one or two daft posts and saying nothing about the vast majority which clearly and in detail describe appalling nursing practice.

I don’t buy into this bizarre rhetoric that we can’t critique or complain about NHS employees simply because they work for the NHS. They aren’t the untouchable, and I would suggest some of the nurses on here spend less time getting so defensive and actually listening to the often terrifying and traumatic lived experiences of patients.

@GeneLovesJezebel

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

This has been my experience of hospitals too sadly. After a terrible night where nurses just sat at their station laughing at the tops of their voices, not bringing meds, not answering buzzers and leaving patients on bed pans for 20 mins at a time ,the entire ward complained. The matron of the hospital said exactly that, the wrong people are being employed as they don't care anymore more. She was leaving herself the following month as she'd had enough. This was 15 years ago,my experience since hasn't been any better either during hospital stays.

It's not nurse bashing, that's a lazy way to dismiss people's experiences.

Very easy to find the emails of senior people in the hospital. Email them with times and responses (or lack of) from staff. Many staff are trying their best but many are not (and many are, but are not providing a good enough service because of other pressures). I have done this twice whilst admitted with my daughter and its miraculous how the care suddenly improves when you start noting down everything that people are or aren't doing.

You shouldn't have to behave in such a horrible way to get care, but unfortunately it's where the NHS is at now.

@Prettynails

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.

Great post.

@bigyellowTpot

The nurses are probably busy making a tik tok video like they spent most of their time doing during covid lockdown. those videos take hours to choreograph so best not to disturb them so just tell the woman in labour to cross her legs.Then they will need tea and biscuits before they can attend to the patients. It's an absolute joke.

I had this in 2020 when I stayed on neonatal ward overnight. I think night staff think they shouldn't work hard

The nurses on here that are challenging this should just be listening instead. Just because you don't behave like this doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I've experienced this kind of thing in three separate hospitals with completely different reasons to be there. Once giving birth, once when my child had an operation and once when I had an acute condition.

This. The ones getting offended should really be embarrassed that others in their profession are doing a shit job and making them look bad.

I was glad when I ended up in a hospital hours from my home, because the one closest to me was useless. They actually ignored me in A&E and left me with no call button at all. My shouts for help got ignored. And no they weren't busy, they were cracking open champagne at midnight as it was Christmas.

No point getting pissed off at us, the patients, for daring to point out that some NHS staff are more useless than a rock. Get annoyed at your colleagues.

this happened me post c section - few hours old baby crying in cot, I couldnt get out of the bed as I was still unable to walk after my epidural - it was shocking tbh - and my husband had been sent home because Covid - I was so upset about it.

definitley make a bloody fuss about this its not ok

Speaking from my own experience some wards and nurses are excellent; others
are appalling.

You are certainly not being lazy and entitled to ask the nurses to give you a functioning call button. It is UNSAFE to leave you without one. Tell them to move you to another bed with a working call button ASAP.

Please don’t pull the red cord.

This was pulled for me in maternity triage a few weeks ago and people RAN to come and make sure me and my babies were ok.

I was then pushed in a trolley (still running) into delivery suite where more people arrived (running) who were ready to get my babies out at 30 weeks.

Luckily we all recovered and they’re still cooking at 34 weeks, but that’s the sort of thing the red buzzer is for.

I can’t comment on the hospital the OP is in, but the one that is caring for me (Wythenshawe) has been excellent. I’ve been admitted onto a ward overnight three times, and been in maternity triage multiple times.

The night staff have always made a huge effort to be quiet, which encourages the women on the ward to be considerate and quiet, but they still have to wake people up in the same ward as you to care for them. You can hear the day staff laughing and joking sometimes, I’ve said to DH that it’s nice that nobody sounds like they hate their job and they actually want to be there.

It’s a shame OP is getting substandard care, but it’s not been my experience with maternity care on the NHS.
Last Monday I presented myself to triage feeling ‘not quite right’. Got there at 4pm, by 6.30pm I’d had a blood pressure profile, had a CTG on the babies, and seen the SHO then the consultant. I left with a new higher prescription for my blood pressure medication. By any measure that is an excellent standard of care.

There are excellent maternity hospitals, I wonder why they can’t all be like that?

I am a nurse and would be devastated if a patient in my care felt like this. Please complain OP, if nobody complains nothing will change.

@Heyahun

this happened me post c section - few hours old baby crying in cot, I couldnt get out of the bed as I was still unable to walk after my epidural - it was shocking tbh - and my husband had been sent home because Covid - I was so upset about it.

definitley make a bloody fuss about this its not ok

I had a very similar experience. I'd even been reassured to just press the button as much as I needed as they understood I didn't have any visitors to help. I have never felt so helpless and vulnerable and abandoned as I did then.

As a child, I nearly died because the nurses on nightshift ignored me for over 6 hours when I suffered acute multiple organ failure.

The janitor raised the alarm (against the nurse's instruction, he went over her head to the head consultant) and probably saved my life.

As a result of the lifelong damage from that, I have been in a hospital far more than the 'average' person and I have no love for nurses (especially night shift) who usually don't give 2 fucks about anyone.

Another time after having surgery I tore all my stitches assisting another patient who was deliberately ignored by nurses.

I also was left all night straight out of surgery with zero painkillers and when she finally did bring painkillers in the morning they were the ones she was clearly told I couldn't have (seemed to be everyone on that ward's experience, and from comments here not uncommon I see).

I appreciate they are tired, some patients are hard and they are underpaid but that does NOT give anyone the right to be as negligent or sometimes downright abusive to vulnerable people as some I have had the misfortune to meet.

I will praise good nurses when I find them (the nurses I encountered at the RVI when I was transferred were majoritively been great... I would recommend it as a hospital) but unfortunately most of my experiances in other smaller hospitals have been very bad.

I've realised that some people cannot easily consider the larger picture. In conversation or on a forum like this there are posters who comment only based on their life views and experiences, and don't take on and expand their views from others' perspective. It comes from both sides of the argument and is very black and white.
The "all nurses were messing around on social media" and the " all nurses are doing their absolute best at all times and it's only the fault of the system if there are problems" type of posters are the ones who tend to always be in angst and ready to fight for their corner. Personally I find that reality lies somewhere in the middle

This happened with me on the induction ward last time. I'm currently 37 weeks and if I'm in this position again where I'm having contractions so close together and no one is coming I've got a plan:

Pull the red emergency cord! It shows the staff you need serious attention.

I don't want to be ignored again!

There are excellent maternity hospitals, I wonder why they can’t all be like that?it do think attitudes vary so much between departments. The same hospital that was a bit shite in maternity have been amazing twice this year when DS was admitted to the children's ward. To the point where I cried when we left.

My father was completely ignored by nurses in hospital and treated more poorly than you can imagine. I couldn't do the doorstep clap for carers after that. Doctors and nurses really aren't the heroes that they have been portrayed as being during the pandemic.