I'm an ex ITU nurse and I don't want to go back

[MozzchopsThirty]

I know I am totally BU
And I could care for a vented patient
And the guilt is awful

I've been out of there for 8 years and there is talk amongst our management of redeploying staff with ITU experience

But I don't want to go
I don't want to risk my own health and my family's health by working long hours in a stressful environment with not enough protection

It's entirely normal to put yourself and your family first. The nhs just encourages some ridiculous work cult so it gets you to do free overtime and kill yourselves in the line of duty. It's fine to think about people other than patients sometimes. You will not be well protected or supported by your employer.

Thank you for some amazingly honest and kind replies

why do people in NHS keep complaining about their working condition

Haha. Come and shadow me or one of the others on here for the next 3 months if you'd like to find out......

I think you'll find being expected to be put at direct risk of a virus that could kill you, and work up to 5 plus 13 hour shifts in a week is a bit of a large ask in return for near minimum wage and fuck all appreciation.

No one wants to be there but we signed up to do a job and thank fully enough people have the moral fibre and sense of duty to help save lives.

Ex ITU nurse now an anaesthetist

People are rolling up their sleeves and doing all sorts to get us through this. We can be thankful some people will.

Lol, I see the blunt bully,is in. Full force 😂

I see thru you sweet pea.

I left nursing around 11 years ago but I was an ITU nurse before leaving. Does anyone have any idea if I would be asked to go back or am I too out of date to be needed? I have tried to look for information online but haven’t found anything relevant!

Don't go if you don't want to.

You have a bigger duty towards your family, you need to protect them in the first place.

I don't think they will be putting the conscientious objectors in jail yet OP, it's not WW1.

Don't go if you don't want to, but don't expect a load of sympathy for feeling guilty either.

I understand the threat of the virus in the following month， but as for the work you have done in these years which are not virus related, is it really that bad? Every job comes with pros and cons. If the pay is not good and the working condition is horrible, what attracts u to keep working there?but I fully understand that people won't want to deal with the virus. No one wants to. But unfortunately we have to fight the virus now

thankfully enough people have the moral fibre and sense of duty to help save lives

Sorry, but should we be expected to risk our own and perhaps that of our relatives etc when we have not been seen as important enough to be provided with basic PPE in some cases. Especially for a band 5 not anaesthetist's salary?

That is a really judgmental and short sighted comment.

Midnight if you haven’t worked in the nhs you would’t understand. Lots of public sectors are also badly paid. But the nhs really is the worst of the lot. The least no of perks, the worst pension , the worst working conditions. the least no of holidays, worst maternity package etc etc. Clinical staff also have few and far between opportunities to go up pay bands if they want to stay clinical. It really isn't great.

You're totally within your rights to not want to go.
Completely reasonable. It's scary and will be hugely draining. In normal circumstances I would say if you feel that strongly, no way should you work in ICU...

BUT...

We are not in normal circumstances.

If you are able to medically help, it's so, so, so appreciated!

I'm not a key worker but my sisters a paramedic and my mum has spent allot of time in ICU (unfortunately).
It's remarkable what ICU nurses, consultants and all support staff endure. It is massively appreciated.

ICU nurses were AMAZING when my mum was in their care, I am forever grateful.

I wish I could help in this crisis, I really do! I'm saying this from a keyboard- I possibly comprehend 1/10 of your thought process right now, it must be very unsettling to be on the frontline.

There isn't a right or wrong answer tho, only you can decide what to do? either decision is ok and no judgement! X

I see thru you sweet pea

Er .. say what??

@midnightOK does your job come with the pressure of looking after people when they are potentially dying right in front of you? Or desperately asking you for help with something you just cannot give because the resources are not there to help them? If not then you have no idea what it’s like.

While I understand your worries, how will you feel if your loved ones need an itu bed.. And they don't get it because there is not enough staff to staff the beds?
Or if your loved one does get a bed, and a nurse to care for them, but the family with a loved on in the bed next to you don't have a itu nurse to work the ventilator. Imagine watching that family watching their loved one die.. When you have the skills to help.

Sorry but this selfish..me and my family first and bugger the rest of you seems to be quite prevalent from ex NHS staff through to teachers.

I am a doctor, left clinical practice several yrs ago as I hated it, but I am going to leave my safe wfh management job and go back.. Because its the right thing fir the greater good.

Just not also add - I expect the poor doctors etc who have died in Italy had immense moral fibre and sense of duty. I doubt that fact will console the families they have left behind much though.

music if that was aimed at me - I am working putting myself in the firing line and yes I am allowed an opinion on people who are not pulling their weight.

The fear is palpable and rightly so but abit like soldiers you signed up to do a job when the shit hits the fan you can complain and say you did not realise what that meant but sympathy - not a bloody chance.

Only thing I have to add - to people on here trying to guilt trip nurses etc into returning - if you truly feel this is what they should be doing, can you at least lobby for them to be provided with the adequate training and PPE needed to ensure their lives are not at risk in the process. Because a lot of those higher up in the NHS don't appear to have considered this a necessity, that's how much the lives of many HCP's seem to mean to them.

people who are not pulling their weight

No need for that. Why not save your voice to demonise those higher up who have not considered the supply of adequate PPE a necessity?

NHS staff have been demoralised and overworked for years. Now the powers think they can abuse at will. "me and my family first and bugger the rest of you" is prevalent among all of us, NHS staff already do so much.

Can I do a minor hijack to ask a daft question? These masks that everyone has run out of, as @todayisnottuesday mentioned: is there anyway they can be made at home? I see chinese people wearing what appear to be cloth masks, not paper; if materials could be circulated, could they be made, posted somewhere and boil-washed centrally?

Tbh I'm thinking that we're shortly going to have a huge army of kids off school at home needing projects and masks should be easy projects. It was just a passing thought.

@TeaSoakedDisasterMagnet I understand that pressure, but most nurses or doctors all have to face such situation more or less, I guess? My work is nothing comparable to theirs, though I wish I could have done a job more useful to the society. just too old to do a change

I can understand your reluctance. Don’t feel guilty. The decisions that will really have made this worse are not yours, but many others. It is easy to demand people do more public service. And jobs like yours are critical. But...

You are right to be cautious. And it is your right. You won’t get the protection you really need, you won’t get the money, and you will be asked to go and do more and more. It’s easy to stay at home and declare others should risk themselves. It’s mostly said by people with jobs that barely matter.

For those slagging off nurses may i suggest that you retrain as itu nurses so you can do good during the next pandemic.

I'm in two minds about this. I'm a nurse on a ward and we don't even have the correct PPE to wear, no ffp3 or any other suitable mask and we've had clear guidelines to not attempt resuscitation on any suspected patient without the correct masks, which will likely take 10+ minutes to get in an arrest scenario. They are creating more ITU beds and giving staff a 20 minute training session on how to care for a vented patient. 20 MINUTES. Your skills would be invaluable right now, my 20 minute training session will not adequately prepare me to look after a vented patient.

But, we are not being supported, we have no equipment. We are being told to prepare to turn the elderly away in favour of younger patients who are just as sick. We are being told to discharge almost every patient even though they are not ready, some will die at home whilst waiting for urgent operations that have been cancelled or postponed. We are broken and stressed, and putting our families at risk. They have downgraded the PPE needed, likely because there is such a shortage.

We are so short staffed patient's are suffering and not getting the care they need.

I'm not sure what I would do in your position, but I have to soldier on and continue to do the best I can.

Make the decision that's right for you and your family

Share share and share again.

All the morons who refuse to isolate, who think it's ok to go to pubs and restaurants, keep shops open, who don't respect safeish distance in supermarkets and chemists...

they need to understand what is happening: people like you are needed because the alternative is no one at all.

It's not right, but this is a desperate situation. People moaning they are bored to read about it, or who think it doesn't apply to them need to be shoved into reality.