Why don't nhs night staff want you to sleep?

[ICaughtTonsillitisFromAFriendsKid]

Sleep is a great healer.
So why is everything done to keep ward patients awake all night? (Well it feels that way)

In the day the wonderful staff are very kind, but overnight, why no whispering, at all? Not even stage whispering? I've just staggered out of bed trying not to rip out my cathetera and canula to pull the bible sheet curtain round a bit, but everyone else is left with curtains pushed back to the walls.

Everyone is so kind and happy to help, I don't even want to say anything, but I'm just exhausted, as are all of these very poorly ladies.

It seems the doctors are not too bad at whispering, I must concede.

Why do they have to put your bed away at exactly Xam? As a visitor I mean (can't remember the exact time now).

I was rushed in with DS (a baby at the time) who'd been very poorly for a few days and in the end needed oxygen. He was so unwell, had been up for the best part of a week only sleeping here and there and when the blessed nurses finally got him all sorted with all his tubes and whatnot and the oxygen going in, it was about 6am and he was the most blissful he'd been in days. I slept for about an hour before the cleaner demanded my bed had to be put away, I could have actually cried, I might have done actually.

All these stories make me scared of ever having to be an inpatient at a hospital. I barely cope with the amount of sleep I get at home in a pitch black room with earplugs never mind observations, nurses gossiping and radio on constantly.

@SO224350 it is NOT free, we all pay for it! Just because we don’t hand over cash on the ward, we don’t have to be “grateful” for poor care. Tories have defunded the NHS for 12 years and it’s now broken beyond repair, we can be sorry for the failure of the dream but I refuse to be grateful for being repeatedly let down, neglected and almost dying as a result of NHS blunders.

It isn't free. We all pay for it.

Well you answered that yourself, for cleaning. The hosiptal would be criticised if it's not kept clean. and the cleaner won't have the time to do it in anything other than a systematic routine. Unfortunately for you, you were presuambly at the start of their round, just unlucky.

Whilst I get that. You're also not allowed to get it back out once they've finished. So I couldn't fold it away, let her clean and the fold it back out. It has to remain folded away until Xpm. That I don't get.

I had a C section and my God the noise….. I was exhausted, in the end they moved me to a private room (I didn’t ask, but as I couldn’t sleep I sat up in a chair and watched them and I don’t think they liked it😂).

I doubt they gave a sh*t, they probably just though you were a bit weird.

On post natal they woke me and my baby at separate times for obs every few hours, when they finished they told me I looked tired and should really try to sleep. Then in the morning the one in charge marched to the windows and opened the curtains telling us how important it was to be up and dressed and busy. It was one of the most confusing times of my life.

@amoobaa I was feeling just like you before my DS was born. I was so, so worried about it, and talked to my MW. I’d recognised that I was not bonding with DD while on that ward, but it took a long time to get help for my PND. I was consultant led care, but was asking to deliver at home, just to avoid it. She talked to the Consultant MW, and I had it in my notes that I was not to go on ward C5, in any circumstances.

I had a room on my own in the MW led unit, and DS kept me awake, but no one else did. Talk to your MW, they will help if they can.

@SO224350 is it hell a free service!!?

I agree. Rude and inconsiderate of them not to keep voices down.

Why do people keep saying it's fee?? What a ridiculous notion!

So are my NI and tax payments a figment of my imagination?

My team are all encouraged to whisper because it's not actually that common to have to move loud equipment at night so the main thing that wakes up patients is loud chatting between bored HCAs, not obs. This only changed when a patient put a post on Facebook and loads of people complained.

@blinkingheckthisishard I completely agree. I didn't realise the public actually despised nurses quite as much as they do.

Don't blame my colleagues going to work in Aldi

@Changedit4this I do agree with you on this point. The sister on the kids ward I used to work on was militant about it and I got a written warning for allowing a parent of a child who'd just been diagnosed with cancer to sleep during the day on the camp bed whilst we waited for the ambulance transfer to a bigger hospital. I may have told her to stick it it's not fair on parents to get them up immediately.

Dont be ridiculous, no one despises nurses they despise disrespectful staff.

I'd feel the same way if my Aldi check out staff were gassing away full volume with colleagues instead of ringing up my shopping.

Plenty of people on this thread despise nurses going about their normal job. They just don't seem to understand what a nurses job entails.

I just don't get it! I'd have happily let the cleaner clean and then popped it back out. But nooo.. must be folded away all day and I had to sit in those god awful chairs watching my son sleep for the first time in a week. It was like torture 🤣

Another thing I didn't understand, my son was quite upset by the tubes he had coming out of his nose (sorry I've completely forgotten the name!) for the oxygen. He was inconsolable at times and was trying to pull them out. He was in one of those large cots (basically the size of a normal hospital bed but with bars that go up and down on the sides) so I sat in it with him and cuddled him and calmed him down so he'd leave his tubes alone and the nurse told me 'she better not catch me in there again'.

Wtf... Why?! I'm consoling my fucking baby for Christs sake.

I absolutely don't despise nurses btw. The majority I've encountered in my life have been amazing and brilliant at their jobs. Those are just the two rules I really didn't understand.

I have had several over night stays in hospital and all have been pretty awful. One I had my own room but no one checked on me, I was in pain and on a drip, I couldn’t get to the loo that easily and the nurse had left her trolly blocking my toilet door so I couldn’t get in there (was in agony with appendicitis waiting for surgery that was cancelled last minute). I was in there for 3 days and not given any food other than a stale sandwich on day one, I was starving and had no one to bring me any food in. Night times were awful, just as you nod off someone comes to give you meds and check your blood pressure. There was only one nurse on the ward and she was run off her feet, I think she was covering several wards on her own, buzzers were going off all night and she was running back and forth. I don’t blame the nurses at all, they are so stretched and are just doing the best they can but I had a awful stay with no sleep.

Most people are in hospital for a reason. It’s not somewhere to go and sleep, observations have to be done to ensure people aren’t deteriorating. There would also be just as many people complaining that they were left all night if they weren’t checked on.

I do agree it can be done a bit quieter though…

Depends on the kind of ward. I used to work on an acute medical admissions ward so some of our patients were incredibly poorly and we took admissions throughout the night. Some patients are safe to have the curtains pulled shut but some need eyeballing throughout the night because anything could happen behind a closed curtain. It’s hard to whisper in an emergency, but I did whisper any other time.

Also yes to asking for zopiclone!

I have unfortunately spent a lot of time in hospital due to disability which also makes me suceptible to infections plus having 3 kids with complex pregnancies/births and its literal torture.

My husband doesnt 'get' it as he has never had a night in hospital and thinks im exagerating and being dramatic (I have pretty much been pushed to a break down before) and I honestly think he should be forced to try it because hes painfully naive.

Thing is night shift do fuck all anyway, I nearly died (ended up in a coma) from menigitis (paralysed, siezing, blacking in and out) and night shift dispite being alerted by others more than 3 times did NOTHING.

I wasnt 'found' until 6 hours later when the janitor (who had sat and tried to help because the nurses where ignoring it) got the consultant doing day time rounds and he instantly called the ICU crash team and they induced me into a coma.

Honestly the care I have recieved on most wards during night shift there might as well have not been anyone there at all.

I will say with my last baby though they where fantasticly helpful day and night but we also had a private room too which makes a MASSIVE difference too.

They are one of the best hospitals in the country though so that probably why, most of the time (including the meningitis issue) Ive been at my crappy little local hospital which lacks any bedside manner.