Being called darling/aw bless by nursing staff

[KatyKopykat]

I do a cleaning job once a week for a neighbour who's been in hospital, she's coming up 67. She's been telling me that the nurses and hospitality staff all call patients darling incessantly. They all do it and she thought it's part of their training. I'd hope not! Another thing they keep saying is bless/aw bless.

AIBU to say this is not professional? I'm not in my sixties but I'd stop it immediately if anyone said it to me.

Interesting. I have just arrived at Phlebotomy at my local hospital. I had a very nice conversation with the receptionist. I told her my full name and she repeated it to me. She then repeated back my first name. Followed by here's your form dear. Go and sit in the waiting room dear. Your name will appear on the screen dear.

Why the persistent use of dear when they have reiterated to me twice my actual name?

It's just sloppy and no need for empathy or clinical kindness to check in a person.

They're would be more empathy from mumsnetters if their older relatives were being called 'hun', I suspect.

No-one's saying they're deliberately being unkind!

We're saying that there's casual ageism going on that they probably don't even notice that they're showing. They might not mean to, but the language and time that they're using is often infantilising, which is incredibly irritating when you're on the receiving end of it.

Well they did it to my dc the other day, and I have had it all my life (as has my dh when unwell) and don't yet consider myself old. I just think if you feel conscious of something like ageism you tend to impute it where that isn't always what is happening.

Are you suggesting they don't do it to people, say, in their thirties? Because I don't believe that to be true.

Yes very often ED sister of over 20 years

It's all in the tone, as I've said many times in this thread. I watched it happen to my mum, I watched it happen to my aunt. I am not imagining anything . It was obvious to them and it was obvious to me, a generation younger than them.

We all like to be treated warmly when we're ill. What we don't want is to be talked to as if we're three. And it's the time of course as much as the words, that give it away.

I absolutely loved my MIL's carers. Even when it reached the point that she showed no real signs of awareness or understanding, they'd talk to her like they did to me. They'd arrive at the beginning of their shift and come and greet her and tell her about their weekend, or what their kids had been up to. They might have called her 'love' like they did me. But there was nothing infantilising about it. They talked to her as they would any other adult person.

The voice of reason!

Exactly, most posts have concentrated on the darling, love addresses, but I can bear those even though they make me cringe but I really find aw bless makes me feel patronized. Someone said probably most of us who don't like it are middle class with a superiority attitude to care staff. I am a cockney! There is a wide gulf between a market trader calling you love or darling and a professional career saying Aw Bless and not addressing your concerns properly. Also I have worked in elderly care and I know that people are not trying to be hurtful but that doesn't mean it isn't. Nurses and carers can be some ( emphasis on can and some)of the most thin skinned and defensive people if we suggest anything they could do better. It's just a simple preference we are asking for, one size fits all attitudes are not beneficial.

Agree. Husband has been in hospital a great deal over the past couple of years. Many of the nurses did indeed call the doctors my lovely. Didn’t seem to cause any offence.

They may call doctors 'my lovely', but do they respond to 'Have you done obs on bed 4?' with 'Aw, bless'?

See I've never heard the " aw bless". I think if I did I'd come back with " did you actually register what I was saying to you? "

Yes, but you work with your colleagues for more than a few days. Turnover in hospitals can be daily. I've recently been in hospital and I would much rather the staff remembered to monitor me and give me the right treatment rather than faffing about with my name. I was on a 6 bed unit and amongst the staff they referred to us as the bed number!

I wasn’t talking about my immediate colleagues - of course I can remember their names, but I often attend meetings with people who I’ve never met before.

Nurses referring to people as bed numbers is appalling. I volunteer at a cat rescue centre where we can have up to 40 cats in residence at any one time. We never refer to individual cats by their pen number, always by their name. If we can manage to do that with cats, nurses ought to be able to make the same effort with humans.

Actually sometimes referring to a patient by their bay and bed number makes sense in the context of a lot of conversations about our patients.

I'm at my neighbour's house now and she's telling me about her appointment at the eye clinic last week. The woman testing her eyes said my darling more than once in every single sentence, she said it was relentless and annoying in the extreme.

Agree, OP. It's unprofessional and patronising. Let's face it, if a doctor did the same then everyone would be horrified, so why should nurses get away with it?
I wouldn't mind being called by my first name (as long as they have checked with me first. Some people prefer Mr/Mrs Whatever).

It's a lazy stereotype. I live in the North. I would never do it, and I don't know anyone who would.
We don't all have whippet and flat caps, either!

what an odd thing to be annoyed about. Unprofessional in that context? No, you are being ridiculous.

Fair enough to find it annoying, but chill.

Im from newcastle and find it incredibly annoying when someone calls me darling.

Also agree that its unprofessional

I agree it’s unprofessional and a bit patronising especially the ‘love’ ‘darling’ ‘dear’ etc,
but in slight defence of the use of ‘Aww bless’; I did once work in a care home (only for about a year as it wasn’t for me) but i sometimes found myself saying ‘oh bless you’ because a few of the old residents loved to corner you into hearing the same repeated long monalogue, which was solely about their extensive medical issues (in great graphic detail!) and I’d already heard it 4/5 times but I wanted to listen as it was obviously important to them and they wanted to just rant and have me listen. So I used it to show empathy and that I was listening and I didn’t know what else to say. I don’t think they cared what I said they just wanted to talk to someone. It seemed to be the reaction they wanted in those circumstances but I wouldn’t usually/normally say it.

I’m from and live in the north. Absolutely normal and not patronising between people of all ages in most settings. I even liked it when used by elderly clients -always with affection. But I’d have hated it between professionals in the office. Hardly ever happened there.

To be fair when i was in hospital one nurse in particular was an eye rolling, sarcastic, caustic bag of a woman. I’d rather have been called darling.

I don't think it's odd. It's not odd to have a personal preference.

🙄