to have not lost my rag at ward sister

[TheTidyBear]

Spent 18 hours in A&E with elderly Dad in a corridor after he had a fall, they forgot to give him food, so I had to get some from the canteen, messed up his bloods twice, couldn't get pills into him so I had to help with that that. Also someone coughing up their lungs right next to me and Dad for several hours. There was also an incident where one of the patients in the mental health unit who was having an episode decided to start shouting at everyone in A&E.

Once he got onto a ward, I did a 2 hour journey home got 2 hours sleep, 2 hour journey back

Went to the nurses station on the ward, asked where my Dad is. Ward sister greeted me "what happened to hello, didn't your parents teach you any manners?"

Was I unreasonable to suppress the absolute rage boiling up in me and apologise and not fly off the fucking handle?

Which is valid but my point is there is only so much you can do with a system that is broken and rotten to the core. We have a huge population for a small island and a growing elderly population as people live far longer due to modern medicine. Unfortunately, there is not the system in place nor the staff to care for this growing population adequately. Yet people on here will use every opportunity to slag off the NHS and its staff.

Very often people have no idea how unpleasantly they can come across. But as with Mumsnet, of course the nurse will 100% be in the wrong, because it fits the rhetoric of all the Daily Mail readers on here.

Perhaps you should get a job in A&E if your knowledge is superior to those with medical degrees. What was your diagnostic criteria for sepsis?

A&E, they weren't giving meds by IV my Dad had to take them by mouth. Have you not noted that A&E is critically stretched?

The Ward, the Dr called me up just as I was arriving and told me I had to convince my Dad to accept the Canula or he'd die.

I didn't diagnose Sepsis. I diagnosed the stroke, which isn't hard to do when you're actually paying attention to someone continually which the medical staff weren't.

It's all great that you could shrug off comments like this but what if she does it to someone else and it makes them give up?

Someone dies, that's what.

I'm not going to minimise someone whose got others lives in their hands being abusive as silly.

Exactly this. I have a congenital disability and have been hospitalised many times - the most recent of which was for breast cancer surgery and l absolutely couldn’t fault the treatment l got and the dedication and kindness of every health professional l encountered. But that absolutely doesn’t mean l haven’t experienced similar sub standard treatment and unacceptable attitudes to posters here on occasion - both for myself and close family members. It does happen.

In the main I’m of the opinion that the NHS is a wonderful thing - I’d have lost my life several times over without it and wouldn’t have the same level of mobility. There is no excuse for patients to be rude or aggressive to staff trying to do their best in very difficult circumstances. But by the same token there is no excuse for staff to display the kind of rudeness discussed here when dealing with relatives who may be distressed and panicking.

I see we're all saying this because we're "daily mail readers".

Very often people have no idea how unpleasantly they can come across.

Oh, I'd agree with that, read back your posts.

OP didn’t say she diagnosed sepsis. She diagnosed stroke - not difficult if you’ve paid attention to all those TV ads showing you what to look for.

This is hyperbolic nonsense. The nurse was a bit off with you. Big deal.

Still no excuse. I'm afraid if, in the same circumstances, my response to the nurse would have been "closer than yours".

Frankly I think she's bloody rude. I'm a retired nurse and had a row with a Doctor in A&E because I gave delirious hubbie paracetamol, and fluids as I could see we were in for a long wait and triage nurse didn't seem to register his temp was sky high, he was confused and couldn't walk. This Doctor laid into me and I gave him verbal back till my DS said " let him do his job mum" . Cue for me to button it. My husband couldn't stop saying how good this guy was once he had returned to land of the living following iv antibiotics, fluid etc. It was chaos that day. My only other complaint was they didn't bother to tell us he tested positive for covid. My blood runs cold when I realise he probably passed it to the others in the IV room. By my own admission I'm a hobby cow but wouldn't greet anyone like you were greeted. Complain.hope dad improves. Hugs

No, she was an abusive bully picking on a vulnerable person.

Gobby- sorry typo

Nope. Try again. OP didn’t say she was giving an IV. If you read all of her updates you’ll see that he was taking meds by mouth until they got around to putting in a cannula for the IV, at which point they tried numerous times and failed to get the needle in - he then refused to let them try again, and OP was told if they couldn’t get the IV meds into him he would likely die. That’s what she meant by her getting the meds into him - talking him into accepting the cannula so they could start the IV.

And being delirious absolutely does not mean a doctor can assume you’ve lost capacity and ignore your refusal to accept treatment. There has to be an assessment of capacity and a plan of action if it’s determined the patient isn’t capable of informed consent. This includes the involvement of relatives. If her dad was deemed to be capable of informed consent then they probably enlisted OP to try to get it.

Very often people have no idea how unpleasantly they can come across

Fully agree, and that applies just as much to the nurse as it does OP.

Please don't take what those posters said to heart. I'm a ward sister in an acute admissions unit for the elderly. Of course worried relatives come to the ward asking for their mum/ dad etc and we greet them with kindness and show them where they need to go. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and Compassion x

Oh dear.
If they waited all that time to give him IV medication (on the ward), it was clearly not an emergency. We certainly do not waste time (hours!) going back and forth, trying to persuade patients they need medication. They tend not to particularly care, if they are at deaths door! We have to act in the patients best interests, if there is a question regarding capacity in an emergency.

Hope I'm never a patient on your ward. Have you had an empathy bypass?

Thankyou.

I'm not taking it to heart. The vast majority of the medical professionals on this thread and in the NHS are very good, and I'm very appreciative of them.

It's just a handful that try to overshadow the good ones with their poor behaviour.

FGS it wasn't "great that I could shrug off comments like this" when my mother was dying. I was having a really traumatic time and because of that, silly things like that were way off my radar. It seems your sensitivity runs one way.

Well no, she was complaining about having an "unpaid shift" of sitting with her own Dad when he was ill.

The IV refusal wasn't for the first IV. And at that point the delirium had subsided but the infection hadn't. My Dad had capacity and was refusing treatment, hence why the Dr called me up.

You came into this thread with an agenda and you continue to fill the blanks in with that agenda.

I'm just saying, albeit bluntly, that if it was a time critical situation, and her Dad was indeed dying, then they should not have wasted time.

So what you're saying is everyone should react to abuse the way you react to it?

Think I'll pass on that, thanks.