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.

How sad. And for this reason, I will never go to hospital again.

My great uncle had quite a bad stroke at 67 (some 20 years ago,) and despite several family members including my great aunt trying to force him into staying in hospital, he refused point blank. He was a strong independent man who would NOT be forced into hospital, and (his words) 'have his arse wiped by a slip of a girl.'

So my great aunt and several other family members cared for him daily, and after about 4 months he was 40-50% better! About a year after this stroke, he was back to his normal self. No feeling in part of his left side, so he didn't drive anymore, but luckily there were lots of buses around. His social life returned, and he went for his daily 3 mile walk, and he went back to playing darts, dominos, and cards at the local social club, in addition to playing with his 3 grandkids.

We all swear, that if he had gone into hospital/into care, he would never have made the same recovery. He is still with us at almost 90, and is a fit as a fiddle!

@allabouttheviews

But when you take your negative experience and use it as justification to state that all nurses are unkind. And that we don’t deserve to be well paid.

I have not seen ANYONE say either of these. ^ NO-one has said all nurses are unkind. Some people have said SOME, but I have not seen anyone say all. Nor have I heard anyone say they don't deserve what pay they have. What posts are you referring to? (Posters names and time they posted???)

And that the whole NHS is a disgrace.

Where has anyone said that?

@WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps have a read of @Dalint 's posts you'll see the Vitriol

OK. Any particular pages - or any particular time?

OK I have looked through @Dalint's comments and have not seen them say 'all nurses are horrible/unkind' and 'they don't deserve what pay they get.'

Yes this poster has posted some negative comments about their own experiences of them, and they think their pay is fine and not low, and they say that some of them are unkind, (and they have found better care amongst paramedics.) BUT they have not said all nurses are unkind and they don't deserve their pay. As I said, no-one has said that (as far as I can see.)

@WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps she starts at 10.27
Saying that clapping for the nhs was the worst thing boris ever suggested.

Ends up saying that she thinks they're all over paid and that her first aid course makes her more qualified than nurses because they're 'basic' but it's ok because paramedics save the nhs

The NHS is broken and because of that it does a disservice to both staff (trying to hold it together and not enough of them) and patients (not always getting adequate care, in a timely way) .
It is free in that we don't get an itemised bill for the care/procedure received but there actually isn't an alternative in an emergency as private hospitals do not have A and E or many of the specialist facilities of NHS hospitals, so you often don't have the option (even if you could afford it) to pay for better treatment.

There was recently a thread about a proposal to fine people for not turning up to appointments but the thread was full if people who DNS because they hadn't received a letter, there was no way to cancel or rearrange if you knew you couldn't make it, turning up to find the consultant wasn't there etc etc. It would be a huge undertaking to resolve the admin side of it and that's before dealing with any clinical or medical need!

I'm pretty sure they don't vote for me either. I don't on strike though.

Yup, you got it right with the clapping and that's where you starting inventing shit.................

I agree I have met some not nice nurses but only a few. Many are just exasperated with the system each shift my time is taken up by a list of tasks I need to do at certain times. I cannot truly offer person-centred care as staffing and time constraints don't allow it. Many feel burnt out and sad they cannot provide better care.

After my first child was born I was left hooked up to a vital piece of medical equipment that kept sounding an alarm and turning off every 20 minutes throughout the night. Everytime it happened the nurse would (eventually) come in and reset it. I felt like I was being tortured!

In the morning DH had a look at it and realised it was partly broken, and only doing half the job it should have been (putting me at increased risk) which presumably was why it triggered an alarm.

Only non-birth time I've been in hospital I had a dementia patient yelling the other side of the curtain and the nurse had to take my blood every two hours throughout the night. DH was worried I wasn't well enough to go home the next day but I was desperate for sleep.

@Danceswithkids what're they meant to do with the dementia patient? Put them down?

Have read the whole thread. It seems to me that the main problem is expectations. People expect to be able to sleep and when they can't they feel grumpy and hard done by.

Would it work better if there was honesty and a warning that, due to all the tasks and obs that need doing, patients getting enough or any sleep during the night is unlikely? Then it wouldn't be so unexpected and patients could at least prepare for that lack of sleep. And if sleep in hospital is unimportant for healing, be honest about that too.

How do you prepare for lack of sleep if you're admitted to hospital?

@ICaughtTonsillitisFromAFriendsKid do you feel better after starting a mega nhs bashing thread? Would you be happy for the nurses who are looking after you to see this thread?

It wouldn't be difficult to put 2&2 together and realise that a parent you're looking after to the best of your ability is actually posting on Mumsnet about how shit the ward is

Uh I think you could pose the same to question to an awful lot of the users who create threads on this site.
However if you look back through my posts I have had a lot of good things to say about the nurses.
Don't think I used the phrase "this ward is shit". It isn't.

Did I say they were meant to do anything with them? It was incredibly sad that the poor woman was panicking and couldn't understand where she was and there simply weren't the staff to have someone be with her. The 'put them down' comment is truly disgusting.

Fair point. I guess it seems to me from the thread that the main problem is lack of communication between patients and HCPs.

I don't know how you address that. And I hope you get some sleep soon.

Thanks! :-)
I took the tips from this thread and a family member has brought me some earplugs. I am feeling positive.

@Danceswithkids no you made a massive point about how the lady with dementia made it difficult for you to sleep and the person who had the audacity to take your blood.s. Im just asking what would you have like the staff to do with the lady with dementia ?

Tell her family that unfortunately because @Danceswithkids needed to sleep we had to sedate her so you can't spend any time with her? Your need for sleep doesn't override the staff needing to help the lady confused with dementia

@ICaughtTonsillitisFromAFriendsKid I dnno I reckon the bit about the nurses rocking you to sleep (weird), the bit about the sister being quiet and then the patient next to you being aggressive at 6am so it is identifying

I would say that an ideal solution would be to have a private room for the dementia lady.

And I'm also kind of surprised to read you call out mumsnetters on their negative experiences when you have also voiced your opinion of health are staff in recent threads, describing your doctor as a moron because he's worried about your weight? I'll ask you the question you asked me, would you be happy for your doctor to read those comments?

I don't think I've mentioned being rocked to sleep because that has not happened, and yes, would be weird.
I wouldn't say a nurse being quiet is outing. There are many of them. And there are also many aggressive patients. Some people cry when in pain, some people get aggressive.

I agree sleep should be given more priority as an aid to recovery - same with food! - but I can see how it currently can’t as it’s impractical. I’ve only spent one night in hospital - staff were amazing, dealt with my medical problem really well but fuck me it took about three days to recover from the shit night’s sleep I had at the hospital. I thought it was my medical problem that had worn me out and kept me in bed for three more days at home, but the lack of sleep definitely contributed most to my slow recovery.