To think there’s no need for tv’s on hospital wards

[Ketley67]

I’m currently in hospital after having major surgery. I’m on a bay with some very poorly ladies. They/we are either sleeping, vomiting or just trying to manage our pain. No one’s chatting to each other, most are bed bound. Visitors are all being very quiet and respectful often just sitting watching their loved one sleep. I’m probably the most able here but my visitors are speaking in hushed tones to respect the other patients needs.

The cleaner on our ward is so loud. Every time she’s comes into our bay she puts the radio on the TV and announces ‘let’s have some music’, the nurses agree with her. She doesn’t turn it off as she leaves. I’m fed up of asking for it to go off. I feel im being a nuisance especially when I have medical needs that I have to be asked to be met.

Most people have their own personal devices if they want to listen to music or watch TV and whilst I can appreciate that some people enjoy some music when they’re working surely this isn’t the time or the place for it.

I was in so much pain yesterday I couldn’t even bare to be touched, the additional sensory in put from the shitting music really tipped me over the edge.

You’re all just muddling along on the ward. Just do what you need to do. Use headphones, don’t use headphones, use ear plugs, don’t use earplugs.
the point is there are things you can do to make your situation better.

Did he have football on on volume then on a ward with other patients? If so, that's selfish.

Say no to the cleaner, very clearly. Next time say 'No, don't put it on. I don't like it and no one else has said they want it on'. If she argues or does it anyway, call a nurse and tell them you don't want it on and can they turn it off. You're patients, your wishes shouldn't just be ignored! But speak up and make them known.

I'm not persuaded the patient is the one who should have to exercise their right to peace and quiet. Why aren't the nurses dealing with the issue, the cleaner. With their post-graduate training and expertise, they must surely know that patients need peace and quiet to recover and that extends also to the night time cacophony of chatter and giggling that arises from the nurses station in the smallest and quietest hours. In my view if nurses want to be regarded as professionals, they must behave like professionals and keep the needs of the patients to the forefront.

I too have suffered from the noise they make.

This was my experience when my mum was in hospital last year. She was with 3 other elderly ladies and none of them could use mobiles or had tablets etc. They each had an individual TV with phone. Mum had an old mobile with no Internet but couldn't use it and the signal was not existent anyway.

Surely the personal TV's which belong to each bed have earphones? Would be a cacophony otherwise. Torture.

If only!

My dad was in hospital for a couple of months and there should be a limited max volume or compulsory headsets because some people are so selfish and blare the volume really high and the staff say there’s nothing they can do. It was horrendous for dad.

There was no tv on my ward. I wish there had been

They supply headphones. But it was a ward of four men and one match he turned his TV around and the two opposite watched it as well. The man next to him had a laptop. We might be different in Liverpool, but we tend to make a little, temporary community when forced together.

I would say the bigger problem is your uncontrolled pain to be honest, I'd want the nurses to be opting your pain relief and escalating if you're not comfortable. No one should be having such severe pain.

When I was in hospital last year, a young woman with learning disabilities was in the bed opposite. She had her mother with her, which would have been fine except the wretched woman passed her time by making phone calls. I wanted to sleep but all I could hear was this one sided conversation. Luckily, I was sent home but I would have complained had I still been there. People are so rude.

Cleaner sounds nuts, I'd immediately say no thank you.

Sometimes, people in hospital can deteriorate when unstimulated. A friend was in hospital and was very depressed due to his diagnosis and just lay there for hours on end. What seemed to help him, though, was that every day, people would come in and be relatively loud, bubbly, music would go on and they'd chat away. One convinced him to not send away the physio/rehab team again and he started engaging with them, rather than 'giving up'. He was discharged a month later, much improved and able psychologically to continue his rehabilitation and recovery.

I think that sometimes, the benefits of somebody being relentlessly chirpy and cheerful even when their 'audience' is less enthusiastic can be overlooked.

This may be true but it has to be targeted and can’t upset other patients.

My dad and I are very similar - bubbly is just irritating and patronising.

i watched my intelligent capable dad being spoken to like he was a five year child by nurses when he was in hospital. There is often little respect and little dignity. Imagine when you only listen to news casts or classical music and, when you are at your lowest, haven’t slept for days, some idiot decides blasting 90s pop music will cheer you up! It is so dehumanizing.

When my elderly, frail mother had an extended hospital stay a few years ago, I was really surprised at the local radio station blaring out all day on the ward. It felt like total disrespect for the patients.Staff, when confronted about it, treated us like killjoys saying it cheered everyone up!

They're working in a medical establishment with very sick people FFS, not on a factory floor where the work is mindless and you don't need to concentrate or communicate with others. Since that time I resolved the first thing I'd pack, if I was unlucky enough to be in hospital, would be earplugs! I did cheer silently though, when an old lady with dementia picked up the radio and flung it out the window onto a roof 2 storeys down.!

Visiting the same hospital a few years later I noticed the culture had changed and signs had been put up asking for staff and visitors to respect the peace and quiet of patients. So probably the culture is set from the top and I guess the only answer is to make official complaints.

Our doctor's surgery has started playing local radio in the waiting room. I find the overexcited hosts and the relentless advertising nerve-jangling in an environment where I'm feeling tense and vulnerable anyway. I mentioned it when I got in to see the nurse and she said they needed it so patients in the waiting room couldn't hear what was going on in the consulting room!

I think my intolerance to mindless background noise is a sign of my age. Our local library has started playing local radio in the background and I think that's a bridge to far but I'm old and remember the days when libraries were a haven for people who wanted to get lost in books. I just order books online now and pop in quickly to pick them up.

I did cheer silently though, when an old lady with dementia picked up the radio and flung it out the window onto a roof 2 storeys down.!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I wouldn't have been able to stop laughing at this. Haaaaaaaa

I think that distraction can be very helpful for some people. Having the TVs removed is as much enforcing your preferences on others as having to have TV on all the time.

I think you're reading the staff putting the TV on as "the staff want it for their entertainment and all the patients feel the same as me" but it could easily be "the staff are trying to judge the most therapeutic environment or drown out other noises they believe might be distressing". It's hard to know.

I think you can speak up if you don't want the TV on, surely? Last time I was in hospital I preferred to have the distraction, so I think it's likely there are different patients with different preferences. Hospitals are difficult environments because everything's a compromise.

They can be good for older people who may have fewer visitors and perhaps don’t have smartphones/iPads etc for entertainment.

Get your next visitor to steal the remote / power cable, or at least loosen the cable so it won’t turn on.

All devices should be headphone only in hospital, it’s ridiculously selfish to make others suffer even more.

Yeah the issue here isn't the tvs, it's the staff deciding everyone must listen to music. OK if it's benign and background, not so much if it's loud and abrasive.
My son spends a lot of time in hospital, saying he shouldn't be allowed a TV cos you don't want oen seems extreme

Hospital wards are so noisy. It’s like constant noise pollution, TVs blaring, people shouting, machines beeping etc, and it causes so much stress for people who need to be resting. It’s no less obnoxious than people who play their music out loud on the bus. Combine this with the long days, being woken up early and late to take your blood pressure etc, never getting a full night’s sleep, it causes so much stress.

Except you've said you think they should be removed so the cleaner etc can't put them on. And you say no one is ostneong but did everyone actually agree with you or did you decide that for them?
I'm sorry you're ill, I really hope they can get your pain under control, could someone find you some ear defenders that go over your ears to reduce the noise? But ultimately the ward is a shared space and they're trying to meet the generic needs. Sitting in silence 24/7 generally isn't great for mh

I think it's good for each bed to have one, as long as it's quiet and they offer headphones. The one I was in only let you watch it for free between 6am-12pm. Then you had to pay loads.

I can understand what you're saying, but I am the absolute opposite. I feel worse when it's quiet, and you are just focusing on all the cannulas, the machines, the beeping. I'd do anything to be able to escape that!

I think ear phones of some description are the answer here, ideally something like Airpod Pros that would strip most of the outside noise for you, but if not, some on a headband so they're not directly in your ears. If that's not doable, perhaps ask for a private room as a reasonable adjustment?