Angelic nurses?

Simple compassion is sometimes missing.
I remember when I had come round from surgery and had a big abdominal scar (I was very thin so it felt worse as every breath was agony) and a nurse came to sit me on the commode. I flinched as she did this and she said "What's the matter? - do you think you are going to fall in half?" - well, yes, that was exactly how it did feel.

The chatting round the nurses' station is so common - even to the point of keeping patients awake at night.

Something is missing here - how can these people be so uncaring?

I've probably said before that when my Mum was in hospital last year and I asked three chatting nurses for help taking her to the loo, I was told that she was not their patient so they couldn't do it! It beggars belief.

When my father was dying in hospital on an old people's ward there was a lot of loud talking and laughing around the nurses' station. On the odd occasion a doctor came along and joined in. On more than one occasion I had to go and interrupt to ask for help for my father.

When my FIL was in hospital earlier this year two nurses actually had a fight in the corridor outside of his 6 bed ward, viewed by all the 6 patients through the room window. But according to him you would have heard them down at the other end of the corridor.

When I have mentioned the loud talking and laughing that goes on between nurses/doctors on another forum I have been told very sharply that it is their way of dealing with traumatic events. I don't think that excuses it.

Over the last 10 years I have had responsibility for 5 older people, including myself and one younger (late 30s) person in 7 hospitals in the south of England and my experience throughout has been mainly of nursing care that has been casual and indifferent. There have been exceptions the hospital my daughter was admitted to after a car accident provided excellent care, but was it her age? The hospital that treated my father well was casual beyond belief when I was admitted.

My impression is of nurses that have neither understanding nor empathy for their patients, who think patient care consists of only of administrating drugs and necessary tests and sometimes do not even do those properly. One of my uncles stank when he was discharged from hospital because he had not had a bath for over three weeks and was unable to wash himself.

I have found the behaviour and attitudes of younger doctors equally poor and I have come to the conclusion that this indifference to other people has become a British characteristic, common to all those who have lived and been educated in this country since childhood. In my 10 year foray through NHS hospitals the people who stood out for compassionate care and understanding were a Dutch and a German doctor who cared for my uncle and the two nurses, one Moroccan, the other Filipina who were responsible for my father's care.

I agree with so many of your comments, having trained as a nurse in the late 1960’s at a ( strict ) London Teaching hospital, I find today's nurses and casual attitudes of so many of them appalling and so alien to when I worked on the wards.
I dread any of my family being at the mercy of some of them and hear time and again similar comments. Of course there are so many caring and professional nurses but things certainly 'ain't what they used to be'

I cannot help but be horrified by all the above mentioned postings. I feel extremely sorry for the many patients and relatives of patients who have been treated shabbily when they most needed and deserved compassion.

My personal hospital experiences, of which there are many, have been very mixed. However, two weeks ago I was given a new hip. As an NHS patient, I was lucky enough to undergo the surgery in a private hospital. I was almost bowled over by the quality of the nursing staff and the rapport that each and every one shared with their patients. One young, student nurse never failed to brighten my day. Her kindness and sense of duty [tinged with a gentle sense of humour] was praiseworthy. On returning home, I wrote to the hospital and to the young nurse, Sarah, and thanked them all most sincerely for doing their best to put me on the road to recovery.

That SOOP can write 'As an NHS patient I was lucky enough to undergo the surgery in a private hospital' sums up all that is wrong with NHS.

I think the difference is that an NHS hospital will never be closed because it is providing poor care for patients, it may close for other reasons, but not because care is poor. A private hospital would go out of business if it was known not to provide a good standard of personal care, look at the private care homes that have been featured in tv programmes, almost every one has since closed down

If the North Staffordshire NHS Trust had been a private organisation it would be bankrupt and out of business by now, what has actually happened is that it is still operational but there are enquiries going on, the chief executive has, I think, been replaced and all sorts of initiatives are taking place to improve medical and nursing care but all the staff remain in post.

We need to find ways to hold NHS staff, individually and as groups, to account so that they know that poor care will lead to their ward/unit/hospital being closed and staff, good or bad, loosing their jobs. It is the only way I can think of to improve care, but how you do that I have no idea.

My 85 year old mother recently had replacement knee surgery and it was very noticeable when the Ward sister was on duty. When I called to enquire whether Mum was back in the ward the Sister came on the line to speak to me. When she was there the atmosphere was calm, caring, quiet and professional. The day she was not there, noisy, gossiping, seemed not to care.

My Mother was discharged about 6 in the evening and no-one helped. Mum came out in her nightie, slippers (She did put a pair of trousers on) and my sister had to help her into the lift, across the car park and into the car. I had been in to see my Mother earlier in the afternoon and no mention was made that Mum would be discharged - not that I could have taken her home as there is no way she could have got into my car.

How different from the day before when the Ward Sister had been on duty. The patient being discharged had help from a nurse to get dressed, assisted to get into a wheel chair and taken to the car.

That's terrible, Pennysue. The staff sound like unruly schoolchildren who misbehave as soon as the teacher is out of the room....what an indictment of our NHS!

I had a replacement knee eighteen months ago In Hexham General Hospital, followed by physio at the same hospital. I absolutely cannot fault any of the staff - all were great. In fact the whole experience was positive. The hospital is relatively new, I had my own room with an en suite. Staff came round very regularly to see me, help was given with everything.

I have today been to see a consultant about having my gall bladder removed. We agreed a date for the surgery - there was no waiting list, I could have had the operation next week, and then I went with his nurse and she did my pre-operation assessment. I had explained that I was going on holiday at the end of the month, so we agreed a date in mid-May.

I do think that NHS care depends very much on where you live (the old postcode lottery). With both the knee replacement and gall bladder surgery I was offered a choice of hospital; in both cases the consultants came to our health centre to see me prior to the operation. I should be having keyhole surgery for the gall bladder, so in and out in the day. I feel very fortunate that we live where we do.

We hear a lot about poor care in hospitals and that can scare you rigid, but I have to say the DH's recent stays in 2 London hospital (Heart Hospital and Royal Free) absolutely restored my faith in quality nursing care. These were not "angels" but highly professional competent men and women who took a pride in their work. The fact that in both cases he was in specialist wards with reputations for excellence will have attracted a level of excellence in the staff. Compare our local General Hospital where the care was very human and kind, but the wards were run with much less precision or efficiency. Staff seemd overworked and did not show the same level of motivation and there was little evidence of leadershp by sisters or even senior staff nurses.I know where I would rather be any day.
So yes, it can depend on where you live or where you are referred to.

gillie my DD had her second baby at Hexham and could not fault her treatment there. She had her 1st baby at the RVI 2 years earlier and that was a terrible experience for her, she was sent home 6 hours after delivering her 1st baby and when they got home the baby stopped breathing and they were rushed straight back to hospital. Luckily all was well and he is now a healthy 6 yr old but she vowed she would not have the second at the RVI, but as you say its a post code lottery.

Glass - my grandson was born in the RVI - not a particularly good experience for his mother. It was so full that women were giving birth in the wards and she had no sleep because of the noise (grandson was born at nine in the evening). She was offered the opportunity to go to Hexham for a couple of days when she was discharged from the RVI, but just wanted to go home. My daughter-in-law is due to give birth there at the beginning of June; just hoping it will be a quieter spell.

Nursing is no longer a 'vocation', but a job like any other. My daughter is a wonderful, caring person - and is now nursing in New Zealand. In the UK she had to put up with difficult patients, stroppy families, NHS bureaucracy and indifferent colleagues.

This is such a depressing thread - nursing did used to be a vocation - you are right grannya.

I can remember one nursing auxiliary at the hospital where we both worked and she was lovely - single lady from Ireland, who could not do enough for all her patients - she was sensitive, kind and thoughtful and always had a smile and an encouraging word. She was always one step ahead of people's needs. She never married - her devotion to her duty of care to patients was her whole life. She may never had had the joy of children of her own, but she is remembered with nothing but admiration and affection by all.

I am sure that there are others like her still out there somewhere. Not all nurses are bad; but there does seem to be a loss of vocation - which has led to a loss of some of the most important aspects of nursing.

There was a series recently about young nurses, and they all seemed far less professional and caring than the ones I remember from my early days in hospitals. To be honest, they also seemed less intelligent, but this was a sample of 3, so no conclusions about nurses in general can be assumed from this. Knowing the media, they probably picked them to make a good show, rather than to try and represent the profession in general.

I then think of the lovely midwives on One Born Every Minute, who genuinely seemed to regard their profession as a privilege, and I would have been happy to be looked after by any one of them.

I have had awful and fantastic nursing care in the same hospital. My sister was in there several times recently and the majority of the nurses were fabulous, except for one cruel nurse who refused to help her feed herself via syringe into a stomach peg because she was too weak to do it herself and her husband had gone home for the night. She was told 'you'll have to do it yourself' in a dismissive way. The doctors and nurses she has seen in the main have been compassionate and caring.

Today, she has been waiting to go home after overnight chemo in a different specialist hospital, and nurses don't even make eye contact with her, which belies the reputation of this hospital of excellence. She waited ages for her fresh chemo tablets and in the end decided to go home without them and I will collect them tomorrow, otherwise she'd have another 4 hour wait like last month, with nowhere for her husband to syringe her medication and liquid food, as the bed is removed as soon as she comes off the chemo drip. So distressing!

Carol ((Hugs))

I trained in the late 70s and recently retired from nursing. I no longer wanted to be part of that profession which I understand now has to actually teach compassion. I'm sad things have gone this way and until we put practical training back on the wards and in the community this situation wont improve- university based nursing degrees can go hand in hand with this approach. Its sad too that no-one talks about vocation these days. I was always proud to be called an angel when I did something for my patients. There are of course still some very good nurses working very hard but the profile of the profession is suffering while these poor standards in exist in some places.

When I was in hospital last year I spent a terrible afternoon right after an operation in lots of pain and with a terrible migraine. I could not move to get myself a drink and the call button was either broken or ignored. That night when my son came to visit I was still a bit "out of it" and I told him that just my luck, I had been placed next to the staff room. I believed that to be the case because of all the loud shouting, shrieking laughter and dirty jokes which semed to be constantly going on . I said that you can't complain because they deserve to let off steam during their breaks but it was awful. That's not the staff room he told me, it's the nursing station and there were about 6 of them out there as he came in. Angels ? too much to expect but professional behaiour should be the norm.

I have to say that when I was very ill in hospital recently, the nurses were absolutely fantastic. Very thoughtful and caring; showed lots of compassion and were genuinely interested in the people they were caring for. They were around my own age and above and I wonder if that had some bearing on their ability to do a wonderful job.

What does concern me is the apparently very low standards of people that they seem to accept for nurse training in recent years. In the past few years I know of at least 4 women who are the most unpleasant, rude, and extremely uncompassionate individuals. Two regularly 'slag-off' their patients on facebook and other forums; one is the most biggoted and judgemental person I have ever met and the other is my neice - the less said about her interpersonal skills, the better.