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?

Asking where her dad is hardly constitutes treating someone like crap..
she was direct, but not rude. The nurse’s comment was intended to belittle the op and therefore both uncalled for and unprofessional imo.

I hope you weren’t driving after two hours sleep as that would put yourself and other road users at risk.

How on earth did you gain access to their medical history!?

What does that have to do with anything?
My gripe is with A&E not the patients.
I hope your post is also down to stress and lack of sleep.

No, train. Thanks though.

Formal complaint. Rude and absolutely unacceptable behaviour. I am a HCP - to all of the comments saying ‘you don’t know what sort of day she has had’, it doesn’t matter. No excuse for speaking to patients or their family like rubbish no matter how bad your shift has been.

Belittling attitudes and power complexes like this in HCPs are dangerous, I highly doubt you are the only person (both staff + patient wise!) that she has treated in this way. Obviously needs brought back in to line.

Feel sorry for you OP for being stressed, exhausted and of course naturally worried about your dad.
Feel sorry for the nurse having to work in such a frantic environment, probably exhausted too.
We’re all human, and can’t be super polite at all times.
Forget it.
Hope your dad is responding well.
look after yourself.

But she said it was rude not to say hello?

"I'm not sure" means probably no.

I'm a nurse, and I get that people can literally be having the worst day of their life when they speak to us, but my God some people do bark things at me in a way that can come across as quite rude and abrupt a lot of the time. I would never say what she said, but I do wish people would say a simple "hello", or "excuse me" to me, first. But I understand that most people probably would but just aren't in the right frame of mind at that time, so don't take it personally.

She shouldn't have spoken to you like that.

Yep. Maybe she didn't hear it.

What an appalling comment.

You aren't covering yourself in glory here.

I agree with you @Gemmawemma9. I also hope the OP’s dad improves but there was no need for the reply you got to your post.

@Justalittlenaughty I've hurt your feelings.

I know there are great people out there doing a really tough, sometimes thankless job. It's not fair and they really need to be better appreciated. For you or if it's the loved one's you have working in the NHS, it's a job I couldn't do. Don't take my experience personally 🙏.

Sympathies OP, I've been through a few 25/27 hour waits recently with an elderly relative, last one was 12 hours and felt positively quick in comparison! The exhaustion is like nothing else. The staff were run off their feet though so it's not like we could speed anything up. Nurses know families might be stressed and you did actually say hi.

That nurse was really rude. If I spoke to clients like that I’d get a bollocking. Well done for keeping your temper.

If you had just said "I'm looking for dad" then yes, I'd have been annoyed at that too. No please, thanks or hello. If she didn't hear the hi that's a bit different, but it also sounds like you're not sure you said it.

I,don’t understand you saying that they forgot to feed him. While he is in,A and E and not admitted to a ward, it is your responsibility to feed him. 2 years ago I had an a
16 hour wait to be admitted and my husband had to get me food. I don’t know what people on their own would do.
Yes the state of the NHS is dire. Maybe the nurse had just had yet another bad day.

Then her response makes no sense... either you are lying about what you said, or what she said. I'm a nurse and if someone walked up to me and said 'where's 'Dad' I wouldn't be impressed. We are humans like everyone else, and deserve to be spoken to like one.

Based on what you've said, your "business like tone", and your lack of sleep I suspect you didn't say hi at all. You might have thought you did but it's more likely you didn't. Let it go, patients are struggling but so are the nurses and the doctors and the paramedics and you know, everyone else right now. I hope your dad recovers soon.

Yes, you were very unreasonable. You should definitely have screamed in her face.

I think you did well to respond politely and that frustrating as it was getting angry wouldn’t have helped you or anyone

He hadn't eaten for 20 hours and they said they would get him some food.

I hope your dad is recovering OP and good on you for defusing the situation despite feeling the rage.

Surely it would've made more sense to stay near the hospital, either at your dad's or in a travel lodge, a 4 hour round trip by train won't have been cheap and if you stayed locally you would've had more than two hours sleep.
The situation wasn't great, hospitals aren't, that's not the ward sister's fault