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?

@bigyellowTpot

this happened to my dad a few years back he couldn't get out of the bed due to the surgery he had had. he was left for hours on a few occasions lying in his own mess as he ended up soiling himself as they never turned up to help him to the toilet. he would be so frustrated with the situation when I came to visit. meanwhile I would witness it take 4 nurses to change the bedsheets on an empty bed while they chatted about what they had watched on TV the night before. I was too timid at the time to properly complain but I certainly would speak up now I'm slightly older. please get up and get the poor labouring woman some help.

Sounds like my local hospital. The woman in the bed opposite me was very distressed after having her buzzer ignored for 45 minutes. She complained to the auxiliary who eventually came. The nurse laughed and said she must have been dreaming because it was only 5 minutes since the buzzer had gone off. We well knew that they

Agree with hoppingpavloa that it is not always clear what those sitting at nurses' stations are actually up to. I am not a nurse but will often be sitting at a station (appearing to be ignoring buzzers!) because I don't actually work on the ward but am there to review one patient / because I'm waiting on a phone call from a specialist that I do not want to miss / because nearly all of our work is done on computers, so I'm actually reviewing the notes/results of an unwell patient remotely. I will always try and answer queries as I can, but often I actually don't know the answers either. I make cups of tea/refill water jugs etc. as able but this is a low priority to me if I have unwell patients. As for why I'm sitting at the nurses' station in the first place - there is rarely anywhere else to sit - despite our work being electronic, computers are like gold dust!

Pain relief especially can also be difficult overnight. Sometimes there can be big delays because the patient has used their prescribed pain relief and now the nurses are waiting on a doctor who is covering ten other wards to come and prescribe more/ because the drug is not yet on the ward and someone is trying to find it/ because the drug needs checking by two people and another person is not available. In all of these instances though, a little communication with the patient would not go amiss! And it is certainly not acceptable to be waiting hours for analgesia, but in all these circumstances, there simply isn't the staff to speed things up...

Finally, messages do get lost and people do get missed - particularly when nurses are taking staggered breaks or when the team is short and bank staff are coming into (and then out of) the team as able. Again, not acceptable but not always born out of a lack of care to patients either.

Still, the majority of us are motivated by good care for our patients. It's disheartening to see the experiences people have had, and it's really disheartening to know personally that you're not able to provide everyone adequate care and attention because of staffing.

Agree that these are lived experiences - all the defensive nurses (and teachers) on here should realise if you're not lazy and shit then THIS THREAD IS NOT ABOUT YOU!

There are lazy and shit people in every profession including my own, and when I hear about shit practices I offer help and advice as to how to complain.

I have seen lazy nurses and agree the night shift is often worse. During the day there are prying visitor eyes.

Definitely complain and loudly to whoever comes to the ward. And you should call and make a formal complaint as well. Don't worry about being seen as rude. That's what they rely on.

@BoredZelda

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

You’d think if this was commonplace, there would be a National scandal about it.

Wouldn’t you.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stafford_Hospital_scandal

I had a family member in this hospital during this time. She was helping other patient drink as no one was seeing to them.

So you’d have several people sitting around drinking coffee for 15mins, however for that 15mins you were ‘on your break’ and often there was much chatting and hilarity as a decompression tool.

But surely ALL the nurses wouldn't take a break at the same time?

Maybe they shouldn't be sitting at the nurses station taking their break then?

Well, in my area (A&E) nurses stations don’t exist as not a ward as such, it’s just a station that’s shared by all. Your suggestion not to use the station for a 15min break is ridiculous. Firstly, the point is while you are taking the break you are also trying to do paperwork if possible so you need to be there, and secondly you lack understanding of layout in hospitals. Hospitals are large places, and often canteen/break out areas are not even on the same floor, so that 15mins would be mainly spent getting to the break area and back. It’s much more enjoyable to sit and have a coffee while having a chat, a laugh and doing mundane paperwork for 15mins than trudging all over a hospital and trying to bolt down a hot coffee before racing back. I do appreciate there’s no consideration given to HCPs though. It’s really about what’s doing best for patients and taking the odd 15min break with a few others at the station is definitely a win for patients given the sacrifice of proper breaks and meals meaning they can be seen sooner. Just sad you get stick for it but it’s been the case for decades and all are well used to it. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting after being on your feet for 15hrs on an empty stomach though.

Often hard to judge. I’m not a nurse but the area I worked in we often pulled double shifts, and more often than not you didn’t take breaks as too busy. The nurses were not immune to this either. Instead you would take 15mins out every 4 hours or so to sit and drink a coffee but you’d do it at the station as was easier to keep going on paperwork etc. So you’d have several people sitting around drinking coffee for 15mins, however for that 15mins you were ‘on your break’ and often there was much chatting and hilarity as a decompression tool

I can’t tell you the number of times patients made snide comments about waiting to be seen/followed up because we had ‘all’ (uhhm, no not all) been doing nothing and sitting around laughing. It really stings when you are 14 hours in, have not taken any meal breaks, not eaten so you can get to people sooner rather than later and you cop this because you have dared to take a second lot of 15mins in that time in which you sat down to have a coffee and had a large go with a few others who were in exactly the same position. While polite, you honestly think fuck you, every one of us should have taken every break we were entitled to and then you would have likely been waiting an extra few hours to be dealt with, silly us

It’s not hard to judge at all. Patients aren’t stupid and can tell the time. They know the difference between a nurse having a short break or doing paperwork and gangs of nurses screeching round the nurses station for several hours doing fuck all.

If you have been busy and have just turned up at the station for a brew and hilarity you don’t know how long your colleagues have been sat there for. You only know how long you’ve been there for.

How do you do manage to do paperwork with all the chatting and hilarity going on? Why do you all take breaks at the same time?

I question whether hilarity should be going on at all in an environment where people are very sick and are trying to sleep. It’s totally disrespectful and doesn’t happen in any other workplace.And regardless of how polite you are patients often know you think fuck you.

God this reminds me of what happened to DM. After being heavily sedated and treated in ICU some bright spark decided to bypass HDU and put her straight into a ward. Coming out of sedation she thought she was in her kitchen at home and went to grab the phone on the wall, she fell out of the bed and hit her head-this happened twice. Her only lucid moment was after the second time it happened and she remembered the male nurse picking her up and telling her ‘you’ve got to stop doing this.’ She had no idea what he was talking about…..

Within 2 days the entire left hand side of her body didn’t work, we knew she hadn’t had a stroke but no one had the balls to end our confusion by telling us the truth-that as a result of her fall she had a massive head injury.

Not only that but it meant because of the bleed in her head they had to stop all anti-coagulants on someone who now couldn’t move. They ended up pulling that emergency cord when she suddenly went into arrest as a result of a huge pulmonary embolism. They couldn’t do anything, she was only in her 50s.

I completely agree that the cord shouldn’t be pulled for any little thing but fuck me please if you see someone in the state my mum was-in total confusion, trying to get out of bed, unable to even use the bloody buzzer-please pull it. She’d still be here if she’d just had those one extra pair of eyes on her for one night.

You aren't being rude but do need to be firm. Staff are overworked and underappreciated in the nhs but let's not ignore the fact that some are shit. Not all deserve a deference attitude. You aren't well otherwise you wouldn't be there, they should have sorted you out with a buzzer that works by now. I hope you're OK op. x

Sillybeagle I’m sorry about your mum. Totally unacceptable.

It’s really about what’s doing best for patients and taking the odd 15min break with a few others at the station is definitely a win for patients given the sacrifice of proper breaks and meals meaning they can be seen sooner. Just sad you get stick for it but it’s been the case for decades and all are well used to it. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting after being on your feet for 15hrs on an empty stomach though

I keep hearing about nurses not having time to eat and frankly I’m not buying it. By your own admission you get breaks and you spend them having mega laughs with your colleagues.

If I’d been on my feet for 15 hours with an empty stomach I’d spend my break having something to eat, not laughing with my mates. How long does it actually take to eat a sandwich?

@Soontobe60 I'm really, really sorry about the loss of your mum and I'm glad the nurses were fab. However unfortunately that's just not the reality of the NHS; And that's not their fault! It's the Tory cuts leaving them both short staffed and short of Resources

Contact PALS and also get in touch with your local maternity Voices partnership (look on national Maternity Voices website for contact details if you can't find them by googling). That sounds absolutely awful and completely unacceptable. You could also contact the head of midwifery if you can find their name, then go via the hospital switchboard.

Please escalate these problems to the management. These complaints need to escape mumsnet and land at the door of management

I get that the healthcare system is stretched too thin (and that's not the nurses fault - I certainly do my best to campaign/vote to alleviate that), but being a patient that can't get out of bed is such a vulnerable position.

I have experienced waiting an hour+ for a reply to the call bell - and not even wanting to use the call bell because when the nurse does turn up they act like you're such an inconvenience (because I need the toilet, or the medication that's stopping me from vomiting everywhere, or they've failed to bring the medicine and now there's vomit to clean up AND I still need the medicine....).

I genuinely fear ending up in hospital again because the level of care is so poor. And I'm sure many nurses are giving it their all, but that's no consolation when you're suffering. It's terrible.

@MarbleQueen so now you're dictating how nurses should spend their breaks?!
I'm not justifying the op situation as that's not right but having been a nurse for 17yrs I can tell you we definitely do miss breaks most shifts...

It's a bit galling when it's 5 nurses out of 6 doing it at the same time. I used to work at Currys and you had to stagger your 15 mins every 4 hours!

I was left at the mercy of the Bounty woman for over an hour.

What I don't understand is why nurses don't take their breaks separately? I was recently in hospital and 3 nurses went on a break at the same time, leaving one at the desk and another was running between services. I get it was busy and by 2pm, 3 of them were all saying they hadn't had lunch. I'm in Customer Service and only two people can go on a lunch break at once to ensure customers calls are answered. We have designated breaks and if you miss that break you have to wait until there's enough cover, that might mean taking 15 minutes for lunch and splitting the rest later if you're stuck doing something. My job isn't life or death but a nursing job is.

Agree that there should be enough cover before staff can all take breaks at the nurse station at the same time. If I sit and my desk and take my break I can't just sit there letting the phone ring on and on. I have to answer it, if I want a proper break I need to leave my desk where I won't get pestered for things.

I think it's also important to remember that paperwork is unfortunately an essential part of the job. It simply has to be done. This in reality probably what nurses are doing when they're 'sat at the desk laughing' Perhaps what nurses should do if they're genuinely overwhelmed by paperwork is have a sort of 'care only' strike where they refuse to do any paperwork so that they can focus on actually caring for their patients but unfortunately this would leave them very vulnerable to litigation as there's very much a culture of 'if it wasn't written down it wasn't done' I'm sorry though but I just don't buy it that any nursing team is simply choosing not to answer buzzers for hours. People have said themselves that they recognise that the buzzer literally never stops so there must be an understanding that this means there's a lot of other patients who also need care. I have worked with many nurses and care staff on various wards and yes some are better than others but I honestly don't think there's many (if any?!) Who would willfully ignore a patient in need. If they were doing they'd get ripped apart by the rest of the team. Absolutely you should highlight poor care and escalate it but I think as the general public we have a duty to really think about the narrative we're spinning. This narrative that nurses are just lazy and don't care without acknowledging the real cracks in the NHS is only making the majority of hard working and underpaid frontline staff feel more disillusioned and hopeless and these are the very people who the NHS absolutely depend on whatever we think of them

And people, both patients and other HCPs posting, have said that they have direct experience of this, Jann. Are you saying they are lying? It's their own experience.

@HarrietteNightingale

And people, both patients and other HCPs posting, have said that they have direct experience of this, Jann. Are you saying they are lying? It's their own experience.

Well I've worked in hospitals several years and NOT witnessed it. Are you saying I'M lying?

I have worked with many nurses and care staff on various wards and yes some are better than others but I honestly don't think there's many (if any?!) Who would willfully ignore a patient in need.

And yet many of us on this thread have said that’s exactly what they do, and we are just a small sample on MN.

I'm a nurse, and sadly there are some shockingly bad nurses in the profession, nurses who should have chosen another career path, because compassion, empathy and caring is not in their nature. Fortunately, they are outnumbered by those of us who do care.

Report these callous nurses, they are bringing our whole profession into disrepute. We call them rogue nurses, the ones who should have been weeded out long before any potential harm done.

@appleapplepearpear

I'm really sorry about what you're going through OP and agree it's unacceptable.

However, I'm slightly aghast at the people suggesting OP pull the red button! You will certainly get lots of staff running to you in this instance - but with a resuscitation trolly and the expectation that you are seriously unwell, or in cardiac arrest. In my trust certainly, someone would probably put out a 2222 call straight away and hence you'll get the whole resuscitation team (including the most senior medical doctors in the hospital) along with the ward team and anyone else in the vicinity, many likely having left other unwell patients / left in the middle of drawing up medications / left in the middle of doing a procedure / left in the middle of a break (yes, these are important, do you really want a doctor/nurse treating you who hasn't had anything to eat in 12 hours?) Pulling the red button is not just going to annoy the staff, it's going to impact the safety of the other patients in the hospital. Furthermore, what would happen if everyone was encouraged to pull the red button for situations like this? The red button works because everyone who hears it drops everything in the assumption the person at the end of the button is the person who most needs their time at that moment.

It’s almost as if it might be avoidable if regular buzzers were occasionally responded to. The great thing is though, a few patients probably get behind being able to pull a red buzzer so net net reduction. Yay! Or…