I trained in the late 1980's/early 90's as a mature student, just before Project 2000 came into being, and found the SEN's were most definitely the best 'nurses' for the care they gave as they wanted to be there doing the care! Getting shot of them was the worst decision ever made in my opinion as they were the vocational nurses and did actually want to spend time with their patients and actually taught me far more than most of the other staff quite frankly.
Having had 23 lots of surgery in the last 2 decades (and going for the 24th on the 9th June) I have seen the decline first hand - things were getting much much better around 2008/2009 then the Tories came into power and things have been deliberately underfunded ever since in the hope that they could sell off our NHS to Trump and his mates etc ....
In February last year I had to have emergency surgery for a strangulated hernia - my bowel was dying and the pain was indescribable, but getting some pain relief took hours, I was literally screaming in agony, and even then it was 2 Paracetamol and a squirt of Oramorph - which is something I had already had at home, and had gone in for HELP! Eventually I tried to get off the trolley in order to lie on my front, I finally got my feet on the floor and the trolley shunted itself into the next poor bugger lying in the corridor! I must have passed out as remember nothing after that until I was in the Scanning Dept. I keep having flashbacks to it now, but on querying it "no falls were recorded that day" How I got back onto my trolley in the corridor is a mystery to me then! They lied ..... and recorded over the CCTV.
Then follows 2 weeks of nursing 'care' - I literally got a wash when one HCA was on, (3 times in the 2 weeks sadly) she was brilliant!! As for the others, they would present you with a 'bowel' (often seen spelled like that!) and leave you to it! How they expected me to do much other than my face and front upper body, (I had a foot long wound up the centre of my abdomen), I have no idea? As for catheter care - in my day we did it at least twice a day religiously, or we would have been shot!! Now they do not do it at all, (other than the 3 times I had a proper wash obviously) and a month later as they sent me home without any help, I was back in for a 5 day stay with a severe kidney infection - then they found I had a lesion on my kidney (missed on the CT Scan I had on my previous admission, 6 weeks earlier, which specifically reported that my liver, spleen, and kidneys and adrenals were all normal). They said that they believed it was a common cyst and it would be sorted when all this Covid nonsense was over in Outpatients.
Two weeks later my surgeon who did the hernia repairs called me at home to see how my recovery was going - which remarkedly was quite well although I was still trying to manage with a wet wipe. I mentioned the 'cyst' and he had a look at the CT and said - I do not think that is a cyst, I will sort it and you will get an appointment for a CT on your kidneys shortly, which I did. Not a cyst, it was cancer! Fortunately my local hospital doesn't 'do' cancer so off I went to Southmead Hospital in Bristol on 26th October 2020 for my second lot of major surgery that year, and lost half a kidney - what a different experience that was! All private rooms with free TV and great care from people who did actually care! Pain relief was brought round regularly, didn't have to wait 3 hours for it buzzing every 30 mins, and they actually helped me to wash and dress, bothered to check the catheter, and insisted on sending me home with help. (I now have help daily once social services got their act together, but they want me to pay £200 a week for it - that + my mortgage = £0 left for food and other essential bills!! But that's another story in itself .....)
Roll on Dec 2020 and something is wrong again - daily bowel blockages, nausea and vomiting, and quite a rapid weight loss as I can literally only eat blended soup and yoghurt. Ended up in A&E a few times, still no proper pain relief, and sent home for scans which were reported as normal. April just gone it became unbearable so went in again and sat there for 10 days proving to them what I had already discovered myself. Again - despite saying I had carers, it was the same nurse that bothered and only one other gave me any catherter care - she was Indian and we discussed it and she could not understand either why it has been 'dropped'. Turns out I have 2 new hernias which are causing obstructions. Why they didn't operate then heavens knows, I am due to go back in on 9th June, back to the same ward. Guess what - came home and 3 days later had another massive UTI requiring a 7 day course of antibiotics! Looking forward to a further infection around the end of June when I come out of hospital.
Too posh to wash - definitely, and even most of the Healthcare Assistants don't bother either! (naturally though, when you ask to see your nursing notes after the event, the 'catheter care' box was ticked daily, as was the washing etc!! Just lies and laziness ..... and not looking forward to another dose of it in a few weeks time!
Sorry if I ranted, I needed to get it off my chest, and if you got this far, well done!
lots of love, that sounds so traumatic x