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

sheepskin rugs on beds for patients who had vulnerable pressure areas.
zinc & castor oil!!
2 hourly turns,
"back" trolley
Hospital corners on sheets,
opening of pillow cases all facing the door
clean bed linen every day
The "back" round
Hibiscrub for hand washing
occasional glove use, for infected patients

I also remember the horror of having a patient with MRSA. Nursed in a side room, door closed, nothing left the room. Getting gowned up, with gloves, cover all apron, face mask and twice a day damp dusting the entire room with clearasol...that carcinogenic strong hospital smelling awful stuff that you ahd to mix in cold water because of the fumes!!!

Flower lady coming in every day to change the flower water and sort out the flowers, all collected in and put on a table at one end of the ward.

Taking patients into the day room for a fag...on a repiratory ward !!!!

15 minute break ALWAYS taken in the morning, 15 minutes in the afternoon..going to the canteen to meet friends. Cant even have a wee now on a 12 hour shift!

Knowing every single face on the corridoor/canteen....now i dont even know what the uniforms mean!

Earlies, lates and early halves...LOVED them on a Friday with a rare weekend off!

Awww happy memories, happy hard working days

OMG yes!! the hats..we had stripes on ours during training, 1 stripe..yr 1 , 2 stripes, 2nd year etc!
Sisters wore white frilly cuffs and a frilly white hat!

the back round is making a comeback
now known as 'intentional rounding'

but of course it also entails paperwork and tick boxes

This thread is wonderful, thank you

There was an element of respect which appears to have vanished.

Patients were addressed as Mrs Patient, Mr Patient, Rev Patient, staff as Staff, Sister, Dr etc and it was a cardinal sin to say 'the appendix in bed 2' or Sister would haul you off into a quiet corner and remind you in no uncertain terms that it was not an appendix but a mother/ bank manager/ individual and to stop your nonsense.

First names for patients were frowned upon unless they insisted or were young.

I too trained in the 'olden days' and funny enough the exact same things were being said of the new nurses then as this thread is doing. I don't look back on the olden days with much respect for greater nursing skills I'm afraid. I simply feel the demands of caring for a sicker and more dependent modern hospital population have naturally shifted nursing priorities. Infection control is better these days, the difference is acuity and bed turnaround is much higher and infections are therefore more rife. There is less doing things 'just because' and care is more evidence based. Nurses no longer are expected to do all the menial tasks (by this i mean functioning as cleaners and making doctors tea rounds!) and anyway they wouldn't have time to do those things as IV workload is high, patients are sicker and extended practice means nurses are fulfilling most skilled technical tasks which would have been done by medics or not even have existed. The sad thing is that care is perceived as worse, as while staffing is the same or worse in many cases, the demands of meeting the every need of much sicker patients mean basic stuff is missed (sitting down talking to a patient, helping them with basic tasks). Patients are kicked out of hospital before they feel really well and their needs are not being met in the stretched community services either.

I have still got my silver belt buckle, bought for me by my parents when I qualified (I had to instruct them in this tradition in advance!)

Endless nights - used to make scrambled or boiled eggs with Jardox on toast for patients who woke up hungry in the night. Thought about that post birth (epidural) when the midwife snapped "We don't have facilities to make you refreshments, you have to get up and get your own breakfast". Have never seen Jardox anywhere else.

Think I still have my cape with red straps somewhere.

Walking along the corridors in the hospital and hearing "Nurse! Take your hands out of your pockets, I can see your underwear!" from one of the scary Sisters.

Frilly hats which you had to starch and dry in a butterfly shape with a hairdryer. The fashion was to wear them small and right on top of your head like a tiny ornate wedding cake.

Hospital badges with lethal points which could stick in patients when you were lifting them. You had to do 9 months post reg as a junior staff nurse to earn your hospital badge

We've got a new matron who says we have to go back to surnames, and we have to introduce ourselves to patients as Midwife X rather than Sue, etc. Address each otehr as Midwife X rather than first names.

bunnyspoiler I do agree that evidence based nursing has improved patient outcomes today .
I also think that the extended role of the nurse is not entirely a good thing and we as nurses are losing sight of the actual art of nursing. Taking on the roles of venepuncture,cannulation etc all of which used to be junior medical roles is taking time away from direct nursing care. Nursing is in danger of becoming too medicalised imo.

Alouisee I think as bunnyspoiler says nursing has changed beyond all belief for a number of reasons:

Patients are older and sicker (generally) - people that used to be admitted are cared for at home by community services and primary care. Patients are discharged incredibly quickly - in the 90s you would be in for 3-5 days even for laparoscopic surgery, now it's done as day surgery. The turnaround is immense, leading to more paperwork and pressure I think.

Staffing levels are reduced - we used to have Sister to do all the management stuff, including doctor' rounds and liaison with others, then 2 Senior Staff Nurses (1 in charge of each team) and then maybe 2 staff nurses, and 1 or 2 students per team. So a ward of 36 beds might have 6 qualified staff (not including Sister) and 1-4 students. We actually had the time to provide good quality care.

Medical care is much more complex I think - I haven't nursed on a ward since 2000 but if it's anything like primary care then nurses have much more responsibility and do stuff now that doctors used to do.

Things like catering and cleaning are contracted out of the hospital and staff aren't always in the same area so maybe don't have the same pride or commitment to the ward/area that they used to.

Practicing giving injections on an orange marked with quadrants.

Recuss Annie the plastic model.

Yes, taking patients to the smoking room for a puff.

Opening the windows 'to let the soul out' when dressing bodies.

Pillow nests and the cages to take weight of sheets off a limb.

Sheepskins and the fearful olive oil and ice for bed sore prevention.

Hospital radio in the evening which came in through the headphones attached to the wall and all the older patients were singing 'The Roses of Picardy'.

Cocoa, Horlicks and a digestive to settle the patients before night duty came on. Sweetheart stout or a whisky was allowed on some wards.

Patients who liked visiting other patients in surgical and who would remove their dressings and compare scars. Or diabetics who would help themselves to other patient's sweets.

The newspaper and sweets trolley when everyone was cleaned and settled mid morning.

catisfat....OMG were you working on my ward? you have described it perfectly!
i forgot about the ear phones and hospital radio!

Bloody hell @ pointy badge

tepid sponging....

Catisfat After we opened the window to let the soul out, we used to place a single flower on their chest

I remember the old school sisters and matrons were very scary, but would really protect and look after her Nurses, and not much got past them.

I remember once in A&E, there was a retired Sister who came in with a massive laceration, I was holding her hand while they stitched it and she ended up stroking my hand and comforting me because I went all pale and squeamish, bless her.

I am feeling so emotional going back...

I was never a nurse but this thread is fascinating. Why did hospitals used to smell "clean" but now they just smell of the great unwashed.

Obviously the huge turnaround of patients has something to do with it but I miss the clean smell of an old fashioned hospital ward.

Taking the vases of flowers into the sluice at night, so they won't "take all the patient's oxygen"

Being in BIG trouble for distributing flowers we had received from the local crem, but not taking the purple ribbons off. I was only just 18 and had no idea what they signified, I did wonder why several old ladies said they didn't want any of the flowers on their lockers.

Writing all normal lab results onto a tongue depressor and keeping it in my top pocket, along with my "customised" scissors, ( cute paediatric name band, and the cord clamp from a delivery pack! ), oh and my thermometer in it's packet of Dispotemps.

Getting ridiculously drunk in the hospital social club for a couple of quid.

Being desperate to get my third stripe on my epaulettes.

Spooky Bit
Having female patients on a medical ward ring for me during the night to escort them to the loo, as they were a bit disturbed by the man from the ward upstairs, who watched them over the bannister. There were no patients upstairs, the ward was closed and used to store medical notes! The patients were all compus mentus, and were in for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

BoiledEgg my Mum said she KNEW my Dad was going to cark it because the nursing staff put fresh flowers in his room just as she arrived on what turned out to be his last day [tearful] so there may be a folk memory/meme in the olde ladies not wanting flowers on their lockers

I'm a podiatrist (degree qualified not correspondance course), most of my patients who are in nursing homes have come out of hospitals with bed sores, sacral or heel.

I've got one at the moment, massive heel ulcer, necrotic patch in the middle slowly peeling off. Hospital described it as a sore heel on the discharge notes and it was not dressed on discharge

A lot of carers strip the patients down when they get back from hospital for a shower so they can check for sores. It just seems routine now .

Alouisee, honestly if you saw the state some patients come to clinic in you'd know why it can smell a bit. And the mucky ones with the thick yellow tartar on the remaining teeth and really bad body odour are always the ones who want to shake your hand.

I think they changed the disinfectancts used to low odour ones, possibly to avoid a smell being associated with hospital, when fil was in HDU last year the domestic was constantly mopping and wiping but I couldnt detect a smell.

Fluffy that is so sad, you took it personally if a patient got a bed sore whilst under your care.

BALD you couldn't usually fit anymore flowers on the ladies lockers, it did feel as if you were training to be a florist at times. I think it was the purple bows of sympathy they disliked. I just thought they looked pretty. :)

Also writing the Cardex like mad and being so proud when I finally understood half of the abbreviations! NBM Mane, PU, BNO 3/7, cantankerous +++ this evening...

wrt to gloves though, I qualified in 2000 so started my training 1997, we were told they are optional apart from wounds.

We all wore them. For EVERYTHING. You never know what you are going to find on a patients foot.

I trained in London starting in 1988. On a placement on a gastro surgical ward I my second year we were told not to wear gloves when changing colostomies as it would make the patient feel unclean.
The only time we wore gloves for everything was on the HIV/AIDs ward but only for pts known to be infected!
Oh, the difference universal precautions made.