Any Nurses who trained in 1989 or before......I have a question for you..

[recall]

When you washed/helped to wash someone, did you wear gloves ?

I just happened to get some poo on my hand ( don't ask ) and I washed it off, but I couldn't get rid of the smell. I said to my friend "This takes me back, we used to use washing powder to get rid of the smell, Melena was the worse " She looked at me horrified. Was it just me should I have been wearing gloves ????? I remember wearing them when I was being assessed administering an enema, so I think we used to wear them for procedures, and blood stuff, but not for poo or sick etc.

Please put my mind at rest, I feel all wrong now

I started work in care in '91, there were no gloves and rubbish soap. The smell of soap-covered poo... yuck.

We didn't have hoists either, I was 14 when I started work there, weighed about 9 stone, and was expected to lift wheelchair users weighing 14 stone plus, using lift techniques that are now Very Naughty Indeed.

Good times.

87 we only used them for infected patients.

Friend had awful dry hands from the repeated washing and was given gloves. The rest of us hated gloves

I started training in 1988, no gloves for things like that.

oooooo Melena , must be one of the worst smells in the world !

I remember going to see a film, I think it was Shag, in 1988or so, just after I'd started my training, and one of the main characters was called Malena. How we laughed . And when I met my now sil and she told me she was in PR...
And no, very very rarely wore gloves, just washed our hands a lot.
I also remember when I lived in the nurses home, and everyone just left their duty shoes in the corridor because they always stank of god knows what and we couldn't bare to have them in our rooms!

Happy memories

Lol 1944 ,I was exactly the same .

I remember the lads used to occupy the top floor in the nurses home and they used to make toast late at night and set the fire alarms off. We used to have to go and sit in the foyer in our nighties and wait for the lush fireman coming out to check the place was safe

Oh yes the fire alarms!! When I was duty nurse on nights one of the pleasures was attending a false fire alarm in the nurses home and having to chat to the firemen....[swoon emoticon]

I trained '83-86 and don't remember gloves being used for day to day stuff like today
we surely MUST have used then for suppositories though

def didn't use them to wash patients , even for the intimate parts , just washed our hands afterwards
and dressings were all done with forceps

Bed sores were a sackable offence-worse was Sisters wrath.

Anyone remember egg-white and oxygen?

Getting the breakfast trolley started at 4am on nights, making the porridge & throwing in anything left in the fridge to make it taste good, ice-cream, milk etc. & buttering the bread & leaving it under a wet blue paper towel so it didn't dry out...... Oh hark at me

Fire Alarms revealed all the extra guests in the nurses housing. .. . . .

I was chatting with a friend I trained with yesterday and we don't remember seeing pressure sores on the wards ...they just didn't happen.

Probably due to the good ol' back rounds

eagle ..................and more of them male than female

Nothing to add but this is all really very interesting...Like a MN version of Call The Nurse

Sunday morning breakfasts were the worst. Eggs. Who thought you could do 30 odd eggs to order, soft boil, hard boil....thank goodness for Edwina Curry (only to save me from egg breakfasts I hasten to add!)

Eggs were hot (if you were lucky) & inevitably hard boiled by the time you got to the last patient.!

Everything went on a trolley and we had to go round & serve each patient individually like trolley-dollies,
"Cornflakes or Porridge, Tea? More toast with that? "

We also cleared the trays away so we knew what each patient had actually consumed.

A lot of time was spent on feeding as I recall but it was part of something called Basic Nursing Care. :)

I remember egg white and oxygen, and no gloves for pooey procedures.

Also used to give all the little Grannies their afternoon pick me up of beaten egg, milk, and brandy, before they were presented to their relatives.

Started my training in 1986 qualified 89, working in theatre since then. :)

It was also the first time I realised people had hot milk on cereal other than porridge or ready brek. Hot milk on cornflakes? Yuk!
Oh I am enjoying this thread....

Enema's were administered via stainless steel can with orange rubber hoses,we even had a small ladder in order to get high enough for gravity to help siphon the litre of warm soapy water into the patient.
Any one remember eusol? all infected wounds were cleaned with it. It was bleach basically.
Infected beds were cleaned with a formaldehyde solution, I still remember the smell.
Oh happy memories chasing mercury across the floor with a bit of paper and emptying the sputum cups and rinsing prior to autoclaving.....and coming to work still a bit pissed from the regular ward nights out.

What's melena, or do I not want to know?

Does no one go round at night to check patents are comfy and can reach the bell?

Nancy Roper and her Activities of Daily Living