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.

So I'm not saying this.just listing things that keep you awake.

I love all the people claiming that because you’re wrecked from the people wheeling in equipment and having loud conversations about x and y you’re not grateful, it’s not a hotel etc. Of course you’re grateful for the care but you can still bemoan the fact that being in hospital takes away the sleep you need to stay functional. I’ve had to stay in hospital with 2 of my children for week plus long stays (in one case I was pregnant and sleeping on a makeshift mattress on the floor-I don’t mind, I was grateful to stay with him!), but I wanted to cry at how broken both were from lack of sleep while being told ‘get some rest’ after being loudly woken by clanging in and out. And not cases where the staff were eg giving medication.

Some people aren't awake though...

No of course it shouldn't but when the NHS/Ambulance service cannot treat people and leaves them to die, it does show a kind of entitlement that we get 21 pages on noisy wards or "i saw someone triple checked for a blood transfusion etc"

There are 110,000 vacancies in the NHS, over 40,000 are in nursing.

300,000 vacancies in adult social care, causing medically fit people to be left in hospital, so nurses/hca's are having to look after the healthy!!!

Maybe focus on causes of poor care, rather than whether you got woken up.

I wonder how many who are bitching about the NHS also voted (tory) ensuring its demise?

Bloody hell, @HuffleWoof !! @Danceswithkids didn’t say any of the things you are accusing her of. Dementia patients often keep others awake. That’s just a fact. They can also cause havoc in other ways - like the man who kept answering our ward phone if we didn’t get there first, caused all sorts of confusion. Acknowledging that doesn’t mean people want them sedated or “put down”! Wtf?! You also can’t tell from her posts what kind of patient she was. She was talking about how exhausted she was which is fair enough. No one on this thread - HCP or patient - has tried to argue that you do get good sleep in hospitals. Not sure why you are attacking her.

@Danceswithkids Please ignore those awful comments from @HuffleWoof. They are totally uncalled for.

@Dalint Bet you’re glad you had a doctor present for your blood transfusion. You wouldn’t have got that where I work, just a couple of nurses. We’d still have performed multiple checks while setting up the transfusion though because we’d prefer not to make a mistake that could potentially kill you. We’d even keep an eye on you during and after the transfusion. We’re “kind” like that.

@HuffleWoof I'm not sure why you've come on my thread, which was great at the start with other patients sharing tips like earplugs etc.
You've come on with an agenda to be awful. Accusing me of writing weird and awful things that I didn't write, and asking me whether I would like the nurses to have read what I wrote. I don't think YOU read what I wrote, you are merely spoiling for a fight. Am I old? Yeah Im a hundred years old.

And calling @Danceswithkids a c. ?!

You're disgusting. I get that you've been ill. I have recently had PND, but it didn't make me call other people names like that.

Get off my thread and get off this site. You claim what I've said is outing. Yet we know quite a lot about you and it would be easy for your hospital to identify you, since we know your job position, children's ages, husband's job, your job, your recent serious illness, your dog, your weight and hair. And you consider patients who ask for a drink a "c*".

I'm not sure how many patients have asked you for a drink, since your patients are all unconscious, but if that's the way you feel about people who are at their most vulnerable, you are exactly what this post was started for, people in caring roles who just don't care.

Go with peace.

It’s possible to find it distressing at having days of no sleep when you’re seriously unwell AND appreciate most NHS staff work very hard (and do an excellent job) in an underfunded, poorly resourced system.

@ICaughtTonsillitisFromAFriendsKid
I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong. Unlike the nurse who called a poster an entitled C based on totally misreading her post. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️
You weren’t disparaging of the entire profession. Lack of sleep can make you insane when you’re well, let alone when you’re poorly.
I wish you better. 💐

I've been in a private hospital after an operation still had disturbed sleep because they had to come in and do checks. Start infusions , stop etc. That's the reality of hospitals unfortunately. When I started to feel more well I found it more irritating that was a sign I was getting better .I do think there needs to be better staff and patient dialogue about this issue no you probably won't get a full night's sleep so patients know what to expect.

Sleep hygiene needs to be promoted lights off unless performing procedures and staff talking quietly ear plugs offered. There are always going to be dementia patients and people who are desperately ill so need more interventions. I don't think it's possible to expect the sleep quality you get at home.

@HuffleWoof

Wow, lovely bit of casual ageism there. 🙄

This. ^ Most posts by @HuffleWoof are shocking. The name calling of some patients in hospital who have the temerity to want to be treated with care and dignity, (and who just desperately need/needed some sleep,) is just disgusting.

Woah! This turned ugly and I thought it was bad enough yesterday!
Btw - I referenced the checking and triple checking of everything for a blood transfusion as a means to clarify the importance of nurses getting the arm band/name tag correct from the start. I'm allergic to some medications and was once given the wrong band, which was fine as I was conscious, however, people fuck up I guess.
As for saying that all I'd get over here is a couple of nurses lol. It rather proves my point.

Btw, I'm sorry for everyone who had to read vile posts directed at them. When you're ill you're vulnerable and the last one you need 'nursing' you is a nasty person!

To the posters who are commenting about experiencing loads of tears a couple of days after surgery, I think that is possibly a side effect of the anaesthetic. I was in a coma for 2 weeks and my then partner was told to expect lots of tears (and he got lots of tears!!!!!) haha.
It's a bit like the baby blues!
Perhaps some of the lovely nurses here can comment 😁

You have completely misrepresented what @Danceswithkids said and outright lied. Your posts really worry me because you are a HCP who speaks about patients as though they are dirt. I have been the patient begging for a drink - when I've been lying on a trolly in A and E for 12 hours with no drink, and then promised one in the ward that doesn't materialise (and I completely understand about staff being rushed off their feet, I do not complain about it, just ask politely for a drink.) I am desperately ill with double pneumonia and pleurisy and my mouth is so dry I can't even swallow, I am desperate for just a trickle of water. So yes, I ask for a drink and it might be at an awkward time for you. But all your posts show is that you have no empathy for what patients are going through.

For you to call someone like dances such a vile name for describing her experience of no sleep just shows you have no idea of what patients actually go through and how absolutely awful it can be. To describe an experience is not to complain about staff, it's just a description of what happened.

And sometimes, yes, sometimes complaints are necessary. I've been in and out of hospital my whole life so I know all too well. I am the most compliant, patient and polite kind of patient because I know exactly what is going on and how much work staff are doing, how rushed off their feet they are, how exhausted they are; but I'm still a human being in pain. I still need empathy and care, I still need a drink after 16 hours of no drink at all, I still need sleep when I am desperately ill.

Have some empathy please for real patients who are going through the worst time.

Sorry that read as present tense, I was describing past experiences.

You were quite nasty and dismissive yesterday. Apologise for your own posts before taking it upon yourself to apologise for others!

@Dalint Also, you referred to the transfusion checking as “bizarre”. That’s not clarifying its importance. And my saying you would have two nurses here and not a doctor is in no way suggesting it’s not done properly here in the UK. I was basing my comments on your previous dismissal of nurses being clinically competent. Blood transfusion checks are robust and safe here. Doctors prescribe blood products but there is no need for a doctor to be present when blood is given to the patient.

A couple of years ago I was rushed to hospital after 7 seizures, it was all very dramatic. Anyway, I finally got a bed and had dozed off when the registrar woke me up at 3.30am to do his rounds! It was all the tests where you have to push their hands towards them/pull away from them etc. I was quite upset and never properly got back to sleep after that. Why it couldn’t wait until the morning I really don’t know.

I agree.

The NHS hospital where my SIL lives has individual rooms or cubicles, as does the NHS orthopaedic centre near me. So much better.

I've been fortunate enough to have NHS surgery done in a private hospital twice, when they were throwing money at reducing waiting lists. It was so much quieter at night, I slept better there than I do at home, where I'm woken at 4 most mornings by a milkman and then at 5.30 by a neighbour leaving for work.

Clearly not when you all know it all.

Now theres no need for that.

@Dalint Oh stop being ridiculous. We don’t “know it all”. But we know how to do our job.