Any other nhs staff who are sad how how public treat them

[godimdone]

Working in nhs and I shocked at how passive aggressive and rude pts and relatives are to nurses. I work as a cleaner on a set busy area of my local hospital and know the staff on the ward very well. They are a good lot and care about their pts but have noticed many nurses getting verbal abuse. When the patients are on own absolutely fine with nurses but when family visit seem to criticise staff and then nurses get a lot of verbal passive abuse. It's awful. They seem to take it all and when drs come even if pts and relatives not happy they moan at nurses but pleasant to drs. It's not nice to see. Last week one of nurses had returned to work after losing her dad and didn't have breaks as so hectic and off late and all I could hear throughout shift pts and reliatives speaking to her in a very bad way and not seeing rest of what she was doing with all other work.
Anyone else seen this.
Any other nhs staff experienced this.
I'm worried as my niece starting nurse training as not sure now after seeing this treatment and disrespectful way public are with staff.

Tbf, I've only ever been assaulted by patients, never relatives, but its tricky when at the time they could be delirious, so aren't aware what they are doing, so we are more understanding of that - its a bit, no harm no foul, but if an injury occurs it's incidented.
I have received blame from relatives because of actions Dr's have decided to take, or just because I was there when they were stressed, so in the firing line, it's an unfortunate part of the job. You need a thick skin and not take things personally, and have strength to know you are doing your best. Easier to deal with, with experience, but not easy when newly qualified- that's when the support of mentors and co-workers becomes important, though can be hit and miss on account of everyone's stress levels.

I lost respect for someone in DHs family over this.
Her dad was in and out of hospital for a year because basically he was dying but she wouldn’t accept it and she pushed and pushed for treatment. (It took a new consultant to explain at depth that age cannot be fixed).
She expected the nurses to tend to him 24 hours a day, check his blood sugars constantly and keep it at a perfect level (even though he slept 23 hours a day), watch him every single second etc.

She put in complaints because she heard the staff laughing and talking because she saw them eating lunch! She thought that they shouldn’t do that when there were patients to tend to.

i don’t think people see them as human.

I don't think it's just the NHS either.

I work as a receptionist in a veterinary practice and I have noticed a massive shift since the first covid lockdown was announced. People have become rude and entitled. It's so they can then go on social media and brag about it for likes and shares.

I'm actually looking to leave veterinary work and get back to people health care.

I could and would never speak to anyone the way people do now.

No im a cleaner so definitely not just noticed it a lot as I'm going round duties.
A lot of the staff were embarrassed about the clapping in covid and none of them said they were hero's.
I was just noticing how nurses are spoken to compared to other members of team

There is a lot of racial abuse of nurses. There seems to be no consequences for the patients and I think this is wrong.

As a dentist , during covid, we were the highest risk profession and most of us worked all the way through , despite the PPE making us so tired that at the end of the day , quite often, I didn’t feel safe to drive home.

Despite this we got told , regularly , when we explained about delays due to decontamination etc that the clapping was not for us as greedy , selfish dentists. A few of my colleagues died and I had to give up clinical dentistry due to long covid which disproportionately affects older , female health workers.

I wonder how many who jumped on the clapping bandwagon are now the people kicking off at staff because they are working in an overstretched system?

Health workers are not saints , but there are severe sanctions for those who step over boundaries , are racist,rude , violent. However too often there is no comeback on people who threaten to get you on your way back to the car , swear, shout and spit at you , hit you . Often not because they are in pain or stressed but because you cannot give them what they want .

The worst example was a patient who kicked off when a colleague booked off time for their 4 year old child’s open heart surgery. The patient couldn’t understand that as the dentist wasn’t doing the surgery why they weren’t working. Is was explained that someone worrying their child might die on the operating theatre table might not be wholly concentrating on a patients check up.

I haven't spent loads of time in hospitals, but in my 50 odd years , have had a couple of operations/been to A and E/ visited relatives etc. I have never witnessed violent/aggressive behaviour except in A and E and then it's drunks etc. Not that that makes it any better for staff, but I don't think it's your average "Joe ".
The OP talks about passive aggressive and I wonder if she means people being a bit sarcastic ie " a bit of information would be appreciated " . That I can believe and it could so easily be resolved by doctors making a record of what they have observed on their rounds so that any nurse on the station can relay this information to relatives. This is particularly important when the patient might be confused. There's often a real lack of communication which is frustrating.
Also I think the real heroines are actually the auxiliaries who do all the horrible jobs and always are pleasant and have a smile despite many nurses looking down their noses at them

This is out of context as the ward where I clean most of the staff nurses started out as auxiliaries and hcas and then moved into staff nurse training so they don't look down on the staff. They work as a team and are a close team.
Also I don't think as a member of public you would see it as much as the nurses in the ward all day dealing with a number of patients and relatives. The post was emphasising how staff nurses including auxiliary nurses and HCA's get treated differently to other staff in team.
The staff nurses on ward I do cleaning work with the untrained staff but you do have to realise that the staff nurses have to do all the medications ward rounds dressings and such forth which junior staff aren't all able to do unless more senior. I don't know anyone on wards at hospital I work at that looks down on junior staff. They are very appreciated.

Abit of sarcasm every day on every shift can become demeaning and demoralising.
Doing a really complicated dressing on a deep wound isn't clean work, hoisting a pt takes all hands on deck, pts don't just want the toilet when HCA's there.
Loads of so called dirty jobs are done by staff nurses who did start their training as student nurses. I have never witnessed what was just said that staff nurses look down their noses at auxiliary nurses. Most have done this first like my niece now who is going to start nurse training soon.

I am white, but I did notice this as well, and particularly from the older generation. They don't bite their lip either when they are unwell, so it is even worse, and they shout things I do not wish to waste words on. I corrected a couple who were on my DF's ward, when I was visiting. No excuse, it is absolutely disgusting.

What would you do about it though? Not treat racist old people? They aren't going to change their views.

A lot of visitors/ family members have this guilt of not visiting regularly or something so when they do come in they try and make out their family member has been neglected. The nursing staff could have just taken them to the toilet/ dressed them etc but as soon as they get I the room they're ringing the bell saying "my mum needs the toilet/ changing/ painkillers" etc.

And to the pp's saying "it goes the other way", I've never noticed staff assaulting pt's and visitors! I've never put up with it, no one should. I get security in to boot them out. As for the racial abuse, if they have dementia, no we don't argue with them. However if they have capacity their is no excuse and staff have the right to not see to someone throwing racist remarks at them.

When I visited dad, his day to day care was managed by the nurses. Not the doctor. The nurses and this is what the idiots did:

1. Didn’t give him food or water for close to 48 hours because they ‘confused him with another patient’ - nothing in dad’s notes though. And no attempt at iv or anything else.
2. They would make jokes about other patients’ accents or bitch about consultants in front of us.
3. After 6pm when I visited you wouldn’t see a single nurse on the ward until 9. I went hunting for them in another ward and found them all in the rec room taking a break.

When I was at the hospital after giving birth I had similar problems with nursing teams. I was also called ‘overbearing’ and ‘pushy’ when I complained about needing help and didn’t help until I collapsed.

Damned right I complained. I went straight to the nurses and told them exactly what the issue was and also raised a complaint with PALS. Nurses aren’t perfect and where they don’t deliver even adequate care they should be called out.

A lot of patients are neglected though if family don't visit regularly.

When I was in hospital for a couple of weeks as a kid my parents came every day but now one of them would be expected to stay 24/7 which I think is ridiculous.

"A lot"? Where are those statistics?

No one is perfect
The story you tell of no nurses from 6pm till 9pm doesn't sound right.
Mealtime drugs happen at that time so nurses woukd see all pts in that time period.
No ward would be unattended for three hours.
Where was this?

I've never heard nurses imitate pts accents. I work in a big hospital and find this story and story about ward unattended for three hours not true. If a trained staff member on break another trained member of staff has to legally be on the ward. It probably was the case that the staff were dealing with a patient in a side room or something similar.

Ozanji don't make stories up as very unfair and concerning.
Tell everyone on this thread the date and hospital this happened at so it can be investigated as it just sounds very bizarre
Three hours no nurses!!

How sad. People can be so horrible. This is another (of many) things that makes me sorry we do not have ID cards - anyone causing such problems has their ID logged and is henceforth refused treatment/entrance to hospitals etc. I know it would never happen but ffs everybody gets away with bad behaviour and so it carries on.

It's not the fault of nhs staff and they shouldn't be treated this way.

But it's a sign of how stressed and fed up people are with the appalling service they get from the NHS these days.

It happens. And no staff often aren’t supported to report it, and the police don’t do anything when it is reported “because the patient was sick and probably didn’t know what they were doing”. The best you can hope for is a flag on their notes.

After 6pm when I visited you wouldn’t see a single nurse on the ward until 9. I went hunting for them in another ward and found them all in the rec room taking a break

That sounds like handover, rather than them all simultaneously taking a break

I’m a doctor. Patients and family’s are usually polite to me. I definitely think they are ruder to nurses than doctors. It’s awful.

As a patient, I don't take medical staff & clinicians for granted. I certainly wouldn't be abusive. Let's face it, without them, (you), we're fucked.

It is truly unbelievable that so many people feel entitled enough to think it's acceptable to treat staff with such disdain. I'm really shocked at this, even though I know a nurse who worked in a care home and told me about her experiences of sexual assault, verbal & physical abuse. I had no idea it was so wide-spread.

I don't blame you one bit for getting out