Angel of the NHS: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (part 7)

I suppose I had better get up for my night shift, I thought, as I lay thinking about the prospect of another night. I had very little sleep because I have road works outside my house and I couldn’t sleep through it. I have had problems with my childcare again because childcare just does not go past 6pm. On a day shift I work from 7.30am until 8pm and nights are 7.30pm until 8am. I often wonder how other women cope with it; it always seems so unfair to work such long hours with children. Surely, in this day and age they could allow women with children to work more flexible hours. Sister does the off duty just a couple of weeks ahead, so I always have last minute planning to find childcare. I had some toast and sipped some tea while watching the Evening News on television. I keep glancing at the time and as it gets closer to leaving I just fill with dread. I just have to get through this shift. I put on my red coat and step out into the rain and into my car.

Snakes and Ladders

It’s not long before I am in my ward. One of the nurses informs me that I am to go to another ward as a care assistant; I have been instructed to ‘constant care’ a patient, which just means sit with them all night. I stroll up through the long corridors, past Accident and Emergency and the little row of shops which are all closed with shutters down. I see a nurse that I have worked with many times but she never speaks to me, she looks the other way as I say hello very loudly to ensure she hears me. I always say hello but she always looks the other way. She reminds me of a snake the way she looks so sneaky. I would love to ignore her but then that would make me as bad as her. I thought when I was a student that some nurses did not always speak to me because I was just a student. When I became a nurse I thought they would communicate with me but that was not to be. Some do speak to me but they are the nurses that slip around on the bottom rung of the ladder trying to get their balance like me or they are just decent nurses who have a strong footing and there are few of them now.

How many Nurses Does It Take To change a Light bulb?

I go up the stairs and into the ward. There is the usual scurrying about getting patients settled for the night. I just go up to a nurse and ask who I need to care for. I go into a single room where a male patient is asleep. I read through his notes and gather information about him. He is just at risk of falling out of bed as he is very confused and had attempted several times to climb over the rail sides. I sit next to him and read his notes while observing him. A nurse comes through and says to me, ‘what are doing sitting about, can you do observations on the other patients and help out?’ I said that I thought I was to sit with this patient. She said, ‘yes but the patient is asleep right now and you could help.’ I told her that if I go out to help will she take the responsibility for the patient should he wake up and fall out of bed. She looks annoyed with me and then another nurse comes through to have another go at me. I inform her also that I do not mind helping but someone needs to sit with this patient while I do, as that is why I have been asked to this ward in the first place. They both look angry. Then a night sister comes to see me and I tell her that this is my nursing registration on the line. If I was employed as a care assistant I could not lose my registration if something went wrong but the fact is I am a nurse doing a care assistants job. So the Sister pauses a minute and then sees the sense in what I am saying.

Rotten To The Core

I sat down and the patient woke up. Just as well I held my ground. The trouble is because I did make a fuss about it I was outcast by the rest of the nurses apart from one care assistant who was from Poland. She kept coming through to speak to me when she had a minute. She said she was leaving this ward because the nurses were so horrible to her. She said in Poland the nurses treated each other with respect. The door was left open and I sat near the door. I could hear the nurses talking about the Polish girl. I felt really sickened to hear what I did. Not only was it racist but they were laughing at her. I am clarifying here; the trained nurses were being racist and laughing at a Polish girl. It got right up my nose! The girl was really very nice and I couldn’t understand why the nurses had to be that way. I felt ashamed and embarrassed to be a nurse in this country. I had wished these rotten nurses could be exiled to another country and experience racism. They were rotten apples. While I sat there all night I was terribly bored. No other nurse came to see if I was alright with the patient apart from the Polish girl who was sneaking in to speak to me.

Your Numbers Do Not Add Up Nurse.

The patient was quite restless most of the night, so I had to stay awake beside him. I read a book in between dealing with the patient. I also had my writers’ magazine, I always wished I could write articles but never got the opportunity to do it and always thought I may be no good. My confidence in anything at the moment was very low. I often doubted my ability as a nurse now. I thought to myself that maybe Sister always gets me to be a care assistant because I am a bad nurse. I sat thinking about another nurse on my ward that was like Nurse Ratchet from ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’. She was so hostile and her eyes were also cold. I have seen more emotion from Data, the robot in Star Trek Generations. When I first started in the ward, she would come up to me and ask random questions about nursing. I often thought she had prepared them advance, so she could look good in Sisters eyes. She wanted promotion and she didn’t care how she got it. She once asked me to do random maths questions on a paper towel on the side of a patient’s locker, in front of the patient. It caught me off guard and like a mug I rose to the challenge only to be ridiculed when I got it wrong. I had a degree in Economics and had an exam on drug calculations and passed it with flying colours. So, why did this nurse think it her duty to give me random math tests in front of patients? Was this to intimidate me because it certainly felt that way? She would write down a sum then go away and say, ‘now bring it to me when you come up with the answer?’ The patients would all be staring at me.
One day I was feeling very low, Sister had left me out of their Christmas preparations and I had to work on their night out. They all had to buy each other a present and I was not asked to be part of it. So when they all opened presents and spoke of their night out I was left out. I couldn’t have afforded to buy a present anyway but it would have been nice to feel included.

Top of The Morning

Anyway, on this day when I was really low Nurse Ratchet came over to me with her sums as usual written on a paper towel. I stood there for a few minutes, I couldn’t concentrate on her stupid sum, and I was very low. I walked to the dressing room and considered walking out the door. I went into the toilet and burst into tears. I eventually made an excuse that I had a sore head and asked Nurse Ratchet if we left the sums for today. Nurse Ratchet looked smug as though she had a point to make and she had made it. After that, every time she came up with sums I would say I was too busy. It was obvious Sister Poppins was her role model.
I check on the patient and he is now asleep. The sun is coming up and I was let away a few hours ago for my break by the Polish girl. The nurses who work nights here do the early morning drug rounds. I think this is very dangerous, especially as many insulin injections are given first thing in the morning by these tired nurses. I stand up and I change a bag of saline when the pump starts beeping and I mark it on his charts. I fill out his fluid balance chart. I have always thought fluid balance charts are the most inaccurate measures of a patient’s fluid intake. These charts are often forgotten about and when they are remembered the nursing staff, guess the amount the patient has had. There must be an easier way of recording fluid intake but until then we are forced to use them. Sister Poppins moans at me all the time to ensure I fill these charts out. Even though I do fill them out she accuses me that I have not, I can’t win. She moans at me over trivial things too. One day I dropped a towel on the floor by accident and she moaned at me. I began to think that maybe people just do not like me but then I know that my friend is also going through a bad time and many of my friends have left nursing. I have another female friend who is going to counselling because the nursing staff on her ward are so hostile to her. She spoke to her Sister and the Sister said it was just a clash of personalities and not to take it personally. I handover this patient to a student nurse who is taking over from me sitting by this patients bed. I am pleased to be walking away from this shift. I always see it as a sense of achievement when I reach the end of a shift. I often now envy people in other jobs and wonder if they are being treated like me. I have another shift tonight and hope that I get through it whatever their plans for me. I listen to The Manic Street Preachers on the way home.

If You Tolerate This then Your Children Will Be Next.

The future teaches you to be alone

The present to be afraid and cold

So if I can shoot rabbits

Then I can shoot fascists

Bullets for your brain today

But we'll forget it all again

Monuments put from pen to paper

Turns me into a gutless wonder

And if you tolerate this Then your children will be next

Will be next Will be next Will be next

Gravity keeps my head down