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

Our uniform was like that 2plus2 - starched collars that attached to the collarless dress by little pearly buttons with a pin through. We had frills to wear on the ward with sleeves rolled up, and starched cuffs that we wore over our long sleeves rolled down when off the ward. Aprons were stiff as a board, as were our hats that took a whole day to learn how to make properly!

I think nurses nowadays don't have the staffing levels that we did and spend most of their shift doing jobs that didn't even exist in our day. I'd hate to be a ward nurse now.

White uniform with blue stripes for 1st 2nd or 3rd year and hat with according stripes.
Our hats were winged types which were made of cotton and had to be starched severely. Latterly, paper hats were introduced but they never sat right and fell off during the Australian lift.

The material of the uniforms was thin cotton/ polyester and heaven forbid if you wore anything other than white underwear. Slips which slipped down were met by a hissed "It is snowing in Paris" by Sister.

The capes were fab and I still have mine - a wool navy with red detail. I felt like a proper nurse in mine.

American tan tights and white shoes which usually ended up with poo/blood/ other on them. We used to give them a good going over with tennis shoe whitener in the changing room.

I am baffled why many nurses stand at the nurses station an awful lot nowadays. We only went to report to Sister or to for the staff change over.

Can I also mention 'through and throughs' - male surgical on prostate day. The shift went past so quickly as it was non stop emptying catheters.

Where did it all go so wrong Nurses?

Sidge has mentioned the discrepancy in staffing levels and the additional jobs.

Tell me more.

Could it be that there is such advanced technology that hands on nursing is not required so much (I was amazed at the ear thermometers recently) or that nursing is more of a career than the old style vocation?

One mega hospital that I recently visited seemed really dirty. A swab lay under the bed for days and the ward had an unpleasant smell.

Let me think about staffing....
So when I was a student nurse. My most memorable ward, orthopaedics where I ended up staffing.
27 beds. Early shift where all patients needed washing, lots of theatres...probably 1 sister not allocated any patients, she would do ward rounds, organise discharges, sort out OT and physio referrals etc....then I guess maybe 2 staff nurses, one on each half of the ward with each having maybe 2 students or 1 student and 1 auxiliary nurse.
So doing all the hands on care of 27 patients may be 6 of us.
On a late often only 4 of us, 5 if it was a big operating day.

This is making me very nostalgic for the good old days. It was a really truly wonderful ward, with high standards, happy patients and very very good care.

I trained in London in 1984. Cloth hats that you made from a scrap of cloth, 5 pleats for a sister and 7 for a staff nurse and woe betide if you got it wrong. 3rd year students also wore cloth hats with a bow (called 'strings') hung loosely around their chins (clipped behind their ears, not attached to their hat), invariably grey with grime or orange with caked on foundation - gross! Remember doing the rounds with the bowel book, and using hard boiled eggs as pressure dressings after renal drains were removed ( to stop urine draining out the wounds). Also using my dressing scissors for everything, including trimming the rind of the bacon for my sarnies!!

This thread is fantastic ,bringing back so many memories .

There was hardly any paper work compared to now .

Wards were staffed by student nurses who were trained by nurse teachers , nowadays ward staff nurses are responsible for nursing patients and teaching students. We had nurse tutors to come to the ward and assess our ability to bedbath a patient etc.

There was much more routine rounds which now is seen as a bad thing but atleast things got done and patients got seen to on a regular basis.

Now patients are more likely to be treated by what we called auxilliary nurses , now called health care assistants or similar. There was only usually one auxilliary on the ward then.Not saying they are bad at there job but some start doing the job with literally no training.

It might have been regimented, and strange, but it worked, and the patients were well looked after and treated with such respect.

Bed sores were seen as a sign of poor Nursing care, and were quite rare, no need for pressure relieving aids.

The Elderly were all fed well, and their hydration was taken seriously, it was very rare to find an elderly patient in a wet bed, they were helped to the toilet regularly.

The cracks started to appear when i was a student, everyone became obsessed with Nursing being recognised as a profession

WOOOOO !! Lets empower the students by removing them from the wards, and putting them in a University, as long as they have a degree, the patients will miraculously care for themselves

I remember in our training, we had to be blindfolded, and fed hot soup, to teach us empathy, and how vulnerable the patient feels.

We had a session putting on POP casts on each other and the next day they were removed. To teach us empathy the tutor told us that the removal would be at 9, then a break time, then at the start of lunch, then finally after lunch. Taught me how horrid it is to be told "I'll be with you in a minute"

We had blue and white uniforms like J clothes, black tights and shoes and a cardboard hat with stripes to denote year of training. After a couple of years the hospital changed the uniform to no hats but white, light blue or lilac belts. I have mine still and can't believe the size my waist was :)

I hated hats, in the Australian lift technique they would get caught by the larger patient, on night shift I remember throwing one in the bin after the large lady had swiped it off my head for the 10th time. Night matron told me off, I told her when we got an extra nurse to help us I'd put it back on. No, I did not qualify!

I am just out of your date, I started Jan 1990, I am embaressed to admit I saw you post when it went up and really could not for the life of me remember, but then I have been applying some science, and in 1992 I went to Occ Health with exzema due to the gloves, well the power in them which I was poo, pooed on, not literal poo,poo LOL!
that started the flash backs and no I didn't wear gloves for washes, dressings (sterile techneque) and bottom wiping, but yes to supposities, taking off nasty dressings.
I gave up the thankless task of being a ward nurse by mid 2000, and I still washed without gloves, bottoms even...seems a little odd not to? and I worked in ICU by the time I came out of proper nursing iyswim?
I went into ICU because it is the only area of nursing (at that time) where you could still be a nurse, as in I washed hair, made tea for rellies, and pt when they where getting on the mend, without worrying about 15 other patients all very ill.
I used to get annoyed, well still do when a soap has a charater who is in ICU (male) and they always end up with a beard??? whats that about? I used to shave my patients, and ladies, I used to shave my ladies underarm, legs, and pluck face hair if it was clear they did this anyway. you can tell...
I was the last set of student nurses, after that the wards had the P2000 who where as frustrated by their training as we where by the lack of hands on they where allowed.
I admit that I realised the writing on the wall early, as in could I do the work of a nurse on a ward at 50, 60? I wasn't even sure I could at 40, so I found another area which I think is great, because I am being proactive, and helping people stay well, and aiding them back to work.
when I was training loads of old hands on the wards, Nurses in their 50's and 60's.
I haven't seen many nurses above mid 40's as ward nurses in the last 10 or so years of visiting family and friends in hospital.

Staffing was much much better and the ward domestics were in-house rather than contracted out.

The Elderly care ward (late 80s) during the morning shift with 30 elderly and mostly dependent patients had the ward sister/senior staff nurse plus 6 other nurses of varying qualification (staff nurse to nursing assistant) to help with the washing, dressing and feeding of all patients. This gave each nurse 5 patients each to care for and the senior nurse to deal with phone calls, management and to provide a helping hand. In 1990 we were told to lose a member of staff each shift.....and the rot began.

Sherry on prescription was acceptable to increase the appetite (it came up in a medicine bottle) as was Brandy and Whisky for the men (5-10mls). We also used to receive Guiness for them.

We had time to do proper nail care, mouth care and foot massage.

Pressure sores were very rare although I do think that as people are living longer with chronic illness that more pressure sores are likely so pressure area care is so so important.

Nelson inhalers with various additives for chronic lung probs.

Memories memories......

I did some private care work a few years ago and I've just realised I never wore gloves to change cathatas, help people go to the loo, wash.
I was never told to and was too young to really question it. perhaps I should've done but I used to just wash my hands with special stuff and use alcohol gel stuff ...

Also just to add- I had no training and the patients themselves taught me how to remove an change cathatas etc

I trained in 96 under project 2000, took LD branch but spent 10 weeks on a cardiac care ward. Lots of your memories are still the theories I was taught but I do remember my mentor commenting that I spent more time talking with the patients and that my adult student peers had "lost" the art of communication.

Still remember the sister running the ward like a rod of iron and trying to clear up the spilled cathether bag without her seeing. Though the nurses told me to leave it for the cleaners. Umm, no, where's the dignity for the patient then?

Did get told off by sister though - was involved in managing a heart attack (mopping the patient's brow). Unfortunately, the whole event was observed by four other patients in the bay, all of whom had been in that situation in the previous couple of days. Once patient was moved to intensive care, I was instructed to make tea. Off I went and came back with big mugs of sweet tea.....only to be told that the mugs are for the nurses and I was to use the NHS issue green cups and saucers...well if I was in shock two mouthfuls of tea ain't gonna help..

I remember being in hospital as a child for surgery a couple of times.

It was when wards were long with 20-odd patients. I used to get woken at 6am, breakfast, then sent to the loo. Beds were changed, we then had to get back in with strict instructions not to get out again. Beds moved into the middle and behind the beds mopped. Wait for floor to dry, beds back then the middle done. I think it was all timed so that the middle of the ward was mopped just before the consultants ward round.

The ward was damn clean, but the patient care for children was very, very poor. My mum was only allowed in atbvisiting time, I was yelled at for wetting the bed and being sick after the floors were mopped.

Sorry, this was in the 1970s

Ah the green NHS issue cups and saucers - long gone I shoud think.

NHS porridge - yummy stuff

Testing wee in test tubes with fizzy tabs to check the sugar content before it all got civilized and on the stix. If it went an extreme clour of green/blue (I recall) it meant loads and loads of sugar present.

Washing bedpans by hand

Disposable scissors which every single nurse had sticking out of her top pocket as they never got thrown away.

Befriending a woman in her 50s dying from bowel cancer and then crying when she died.

Actually cried lots at times over patients (not on the ward) who died and whom I ad got attached to.

I still love the human element of the job but don't think I could work on a modern ward with short staffing as not giving good care would kill me.

I was wondering what it was like for kids, highlander

DS2 was in last week, there is no way I could have left him. How did nurses manage poorly toddlers?

I remember during our paed training, we had a toddler in with salmonella so was being close barrier nursed. Big plastic sheets up, careful disposal of aprons, masks, equipment. Unfortunately, his mum dumped some more of her children in the cot then went shopping.
She said that her children would be safe as 'the nurses will look after them'.

Another student nurse and I caught salmonella and were not allowed to do our midwifery training for six months.

We read to the children, did jigsaws, clowned about with blown up rubber gloves and cuddled them if they were upset. Sometimes a volunteer would come in for a while to entertain the more ambulant children.

One of the cleaners was brilliant with the children and Sister turned a blind eye to the time it took her to clean the ward.(some of us would help clean if she was with them)

It sounds such a cliche but everyone worked together regardless of status and you knew exactly what your duties were for the day.

Various duties were ticked off in your training book once achieved and you always hoped for a favourable report at the end of your stint.

I have been thinking about staffing levels.

I remember it as, on an early, a Sister, then a staff nurse on each side with a student and an auxiliary nurse, that was for 4 bays and 4 side rooms. Then on a late there were probably about 5 on.

Nights there were 3, one of whom was a student ( sometimes left in charge )

The paper worked perfectly well, just documented everything in the Kardex. You could pick it up and find out any information needed at a glance.

Never lolled about at the Nurses station during the day, just wouldn't dare, that time would be spent with the patients.

I hated it all at the time, but looking back it was very safe and good care.

The Midwives and Nurses that have helped me in recent years have mostly been amazing, I have to add, but its the whole management of their situation that that is poor - I think.

Pippi from your description of the hats you were a Guys girl too?

Those bloody "strings" I had a friend who was a dab hand at making the hats, we had to soak them in starch and iron them when dry, adding extra spray starch as we went along. Mine used to collapse I took so long trying to get the 5 pleats right, my friend took pity on me & used to do all mine in return for a couple of ciggies (we all did in those days)

I think the difference with nursing these days is that the training is mostly in college, so the students don't get the hands on experience from highly experienced older staff nurses,ward sisters and the auxillaries (HCA's now) who taught you the practical skills to back up the theory. Also all the little tricks that you just didn't get from text books. How to change a bed with minimal clean laundry, coaxing an elderly patient to eat, using the backrest BEHIND the pile of pillows to make a comfortable nest for the patient.

We also did a lot of the cleaning around the bed while the ward domestic did the floors and "deep" cleaning. It was a matter of pride that your patient was clean, tidy and comfortable as soon as possible in the morning and certainly before visiting time.

The paperwork generated by each patient today would frustrate the hell out of me today, it was getting bad back in the late 90's when I left. I have done bits of caring since just as an HCA and am by the level of care a patient receives due to time and admin pressures on the nursing staff.