Just a rant from a nurse

[Bestkindaparty]

I know there's a 101 threads about the nursing strike. But I just need an anonymous forum to rant.
I left home at 6am this morning and I'm only just getting home. I need a shower because someone threw their hot coffee over me because I didn't answer their buzzer fast enough and they needed a pillow. I didn't answer it quick enough because I was performing cpr on a child with suspected strep A. 12 hours into my shift without a break because we just don't have the staff.
All week on Facebook tiktok and other social media all I've seen is how disgusting us nurses are. How people will die because of the strikes all because we want more money.
Yes we want to paid fairly. We do not get paid enough for the training we do. 2300 hours of unpaid work and then other 3000 hours of uni. Plus all the responsibilities we have. Some people think we're just doctors assistants but its not like that anymore. But the main reason is we're tired of fearing for our pins (that we pay a yearly fee for) we're tired of not being able to care for people the way we want because there's not enough staff. The ratio is supposed to be 1 to 3. I can't remember when I've had less than 8 patients. We want to protect the NHS. We need people to join and to retain current staff who are leaving in droves due to burnout. What happens when there's none of us left?
We had no option but to strike. Nothing else has worked. We want to protect ours and everyone's future. Personally I don't want to cry on every drive to and from work because I'm scared someone will die due to me not being able to give the care they need.
If you've got this far thanks for reading

I would fully support a return to nursing degrees being fully funded to encourage students to join the profession I would also support a tax rise to fund reforms in the NHS as long as it is ring fenced for improving patient care and not employing more useless cretins that I've just sacked for incompetence (which is what happened last week)

You can do the degree in two years if you are sponsored by a trust or 3 years if you go through university. I did three years. It was tricky as I was a single mum with a mortgage so I just did some work in a local nursing home to make ends meet. Best thing I ever did. 9 to 5 weekends and Bank Holidays off.

Thanks, this is definitely something I'm going to look in to.

I was speaking to a nurse lecturer recently who said a large proportion of student nurses on her course were doing the training to go into the cosmetic/aesthetic business which is rather sad IMO.

I feel for you but, sadly, my experience over the past 12 months with the NHS, mainly as a hospital visitor, has not been good. I’ve found many, many nurses to be uncooperative, rude and dismissive towards the general public. As with all professions I’m sure there are lots of conscientious workers (yourself included) but lots of lazy slackers as well. The whole system needs to be looked at closely before I can offer my support to industrial action.

@Clavinova but that 58% constitutes 3 grades 6, 7, and 8...band 5s are still the most numerous group.

“uncooperative, rude and dismissive towards the general public. As with all professions I’m sure there are lots of conscientious workers (yourself included) but lots of lazy slackers as well”

Really? Or perhaps burnt out, exhausted, being taken total advantage of and worrying about how we can afford to live. Of course not everyone is amazing we’re a huge work force and so there’s always some rotten eggs but I’d hazard a guess you’re unlikely to have encountered many lazy slackers, it’s pretty difficult to slack in our profession.

I can't see that the government has any leverage in this situation, things will get worse, more nurses will leave and then we will have no health service, where does that leave the government?
Rates of sickness and disability will rise businesses will fail because of sickness and staff shortages, businesses won't want to invest in the UK if there are no healthy people to work for them.
Or maybe without the NHS we will all start exercising and eating healthily?

In the past the government could rely on women to comply out of deference times change and we're not like that anymore

Odessafile
@ Clavinova but that 58% constitutes 3 grades 6, 7, and 8...band 5s are still the most numerous group

The fact that 58% of nurses are grade 6 or above doesn't suggest that "progression within nursing is abysmal" as per your post.

100% with the nurses, stupid government are insane not looking out for you guys, and let's face it, all the spin about people dying and not going home for Christmas because of the nurses strike ... that's turning the heads of the general public in the wrong direction --- look at the government people, the nurses have suffered long enough, it's the governments fault, not the nurses ... they just need to negotiate with the nursing unions to come to a decent compromise
Good luck

@clavinova why don't you believe her anecdote?! Also she isn't doing anything wrong saying about strep A - she's just explaining the pressures she was under. If you think it sounds farfetched, well maybe that's the issue - they are having to deal with situations that you think are too extreme to be real.

why don't you believe her anecdote?!

Because hospitals/health professionals are saying that complications with strep A are "rare".

They’re saying it’s rare, not that it’s not occurring.

There are many things that are rare that people have anecdotes of. You’re sceptical because it doesn’t fit your viewpoint that nurses don’t deserve more pay.

But they do happen. Rare doesn't mean non-existant.

@Clavinova Rare means it affects less than a certain percentage. That's all. I've had an ectopic pregnancy. They are rare. But loads of people on here have had them (or.maybe you think we're making it up!)

I 100% support the nhs strikes both ambulance and nurses. I already did but have just spent the past day and half with it up close and personal with me mum waiting horrifying amounts of time for an ambulance, then in an ambulance and now in an assessment unit waiting for a bed. Staff have been wonderful, patient and kind in desperate circumstances. Listening to the ambulance crews frustration at not being able to answer red calls as they and 20 other crews we sat outside all night was heartbreaking. Drs, nurses, support staff and paramedics apologising that they couldn't do more even though none of the problems were their fault. Hospital is full.
Staff have been so calm and wonderful to us both. Mum has Alzheimer's so it's been a particularly tough time. We should be doing everything we can to retain these wonderful staff not drive them away.

Also she isn't doing anything wrong saying about strep A

I disagree. In my opinion her anecdote;"I was performing cpr on a child with suspected strep A" is unprofessional when some children have died from strep A and parents' fears are heightened - particularly on a parenting forum when health professionals are telling parents not to panic. You could call it emotional blackmail.

Ginsloth
You’re sceptical because it doesn’t fit your viewpoint that nurses don’t deserve more pay

I wouldn't blink at 5%/6% - 19% is too much.

Totally support the nurse's strike. Hate the way emotional blackmail is used against you, and the 'vocation' argument for trying to make nurses accept shitty pay and terms and conditions.

It's governments and senior NHS leadership that have wrecked the NHS, not nursing staff.

The 11% (currently) voting that you are being unreasonable can frankly go fuck themselves!

While the system is fucked up in so many cases, the individual staff do so much more than most here can imagine. I did 20 years in the NHS, non clinical but working with patients, and left so utterly burnt out. I do a similar role in the private sector now, and not only did I double my salary, but when I do extra hours, I am encouraged to make sure I take them back, people say THANK YOU to me, I receive the correct training and support. None of which happened in the NHS. I worked 70 hour weeks during covid, as did the majority of my colleagues in utterly terrifying circumstances, but all I hear is "well, nurses barely worked, they just did tiktok dances". It's the right wing media and their campaign of hatred against those in the NHS, and those that believe all they read, that finally broke me.

The NHS has only survived in its dysfunctional state because it was possible to manipulate women into tolerating low pay and very bad working conditions
Women don't have to put up with that anymore, we want to be treated like human beings now

You’re on the same band as all the physios, podiatrists, occupational therapists etc so if you deserve a raise so do we.

If you wanted to work normal working days Nursing was the wrong profession to train for. So is midwifery.

If you wanted to be wealthy nursing was the wrong profession to train for. If you want a decent wage in health care you need to be a consultant with a private practice.

Your PIN fee is similar to what other hcp pay to HCPC. Only we don’t complain about it. It’s a £100 a year. Again, you know this when you train.

UK university’s are socialist indoctrination, it should be apolitical but it’s not. Our first year sociology lectures where a 3hr advert for the Labour Party.

I’ve worked with some good nurses but also with ones who are thick as mince, probably Project 2000. The time I had to point out to an A+E nurse that fil was in atrial fibrillation after she’d been in twice, looked at his monitor and sailed out again stands out in my mind. I could tell by his monitor what was going on. She couldn’t and she’s working in an emergency dept? The sister had to give her a crash course on a fib and treat it because fil was going into heart failure.

None of you will support the nurses if your relative dies because there’s no beds & they die due to delays.

The ones who provided dhs pal care were rubbish, he was agitated as fuck and they didn’t do anything for him I had to get an ambulance out and get him into hospital where the pal care consultant told me the drugs in his syringe driver were all wrong and might’ve actually been completely ineffective. Her treatment calmed him but he had 48hrs of distress because no one was doing a good job.

The nhs was doomed to fail, Bevan was warned it wouldn’t work & carried on anyway.