Out With The Old In With The New

It is past midnight and I can hear cheering.I walk up through the close and all my friends who said they would wait for me have gone. I knew they were drunk but not that drunk. I felt lonely and scared, I was all alone. I look up the hill to the big clock and see swarms of people all cheering, arms swaying in the air, staggering in drink induced happiness. I am not happy for I am alone. I walk up the hill towards
the big clock, cars drive by and their tyres are noisy on the cobbled roads and I am splashed as a car’s tyres trundle though a puddle. A man stands in a door way which has kilts in the window; he holds a cigarette and turns to me saying, ‘have you got a light miss?’ I reply by saying, ‘I am sorry but I do not smoke.’ ‘I see you are alone’ he says. I think for a minute and reply,‘no, my friends are up beside the clock.’ ‘You do not want to be alone tonight girl’, he states. I just ignore him and continue walking up the hill. I try to walk through the crowd as some of them try to shake my hand. A few of them jeer me, as I must look unhappy. ‘Cheer up hen, it’s no that bad,' one very straggly looking man states. I push my way through them all and walk down a banana shaped road with row upon row of shops. There are hardly any people in this street. I hear footsteps and look behind me. It is the man that asked me for a light. I am really frightened I just know he is following me.

Out of Breath


I walk faster and I hear his pace pick up too. If I run he will know that I am aware of him. I must run it is my only way to escape. I run down the hill towards a small roundabout and run across the road. I look around and see the man run too. I must find a taxi but there are few and they are all full up tonight. I am now running up a hill and my legs feel heavy. I look up and see a big monument which looks quite eerie and black. I keep on running and get to a big street with people swaying around, they all look drunk. Nobody takes any notice of me. I turn around and the man is gaining on me. My legs have become so heavy and I just can’t run anymore I cough and am out of breath. The man grabs my arm. ‘Where are you going miss?’ he asks. ‘Just let me go,’ I reply. He goes into his pocket and I see something shine in his hand. ‘If you want to be safe you need to come with me, make any noise and you will regret it’ I am so scared I try to shout, I see his face peering over mine in anger. I wake up and do not know where I am, it is very dark. I can’t see the usual streetlights. I lie still wondering where I am. If I am elsewhere I will soon know. I lift out my arm and reach over to find my phone. I grab it tightly as I know I am safe at home. I sigh with relief. I have had another bad dream. I lie back but wonder why there are no lights outside. I get up and turn on my light switch but it does not come on. I search for my torch which I keep on top of a cupboard for such emergencies. I switch on the torch and see the man who was chasing me in the light. I jump up out of bed, as I see the familiar street lights out my window.My nightmares are getting worse. I wander through to my kitchen, open the fridge door and take the milk out and pour it into a glass. I sit at my kitchen table and worry at how bad my nightmares have become. I wonder what they mean. I glance over at the clock, it is now 4am. I am too frightened to go back to sleep in case I get another bad dream. I switch on the radio and read my book while I sit on the couch; the cat sits on my lap. I suddenly wake up with the radio saying that it is 6am. Oh no, I will be late. I jump up and get ready.


Back Shift

I wander through the hospital and I bump into Elias the porter. I ask him where he has been. He says, ‘my back is injured with pushing the trolleys, I have been off sick.’ I feel sorry for him he always looks tired and unwell. Porters are on such poor pay and their work is so hard, they must walk miles every day. Their work is so undervalued. I tell him it is good to see him as we part company. I walk into a ward and I can smell pooh as soon as I enter. I hear a voice shout, ‘you are late, we start earlier in this ward.’ I say that nobody informed me but it falls on deaf ears as the nurse says go through into that room and listen to the taped handover.
I wander into a dusty old room and listen to a tape with many abbreviations and the nurse speaking could not talk any faster if she tried. I keep stopping the tape and rewinding it to try to get the information. I eventually give up. I wander through this very old looking ward. I am told I need to work with another nurse. I introduce myself and the nurse is pleasant back but is very flustered. I feel a bit lost as they are a bit through their morning already. I wander into a room to help a patient eat breakfast. The patient sighs at me as I do not feed her the way she likes to be fed. I quickly apologise and tell her that I am new. I take the patients plate out and place it on the trolley. The care assistant stands there and just stares at me but says nothing. I smile and say hello to her, she says hello back but with a very blank face. I hear that she has been there a long time. She clearly has no time for me and moans at me when I do not do as she instructs me. She said to me, ‘go and do this.’ As I always understood it I am not a care assistants’, assistant but I do not mind working as a team and I understand care assistants can be lovely people too. If she had asked me in a respectful manner I may have helped her out. I see her wander up to a nurse and I hear the nurse shout, ‘aye, is that right, we will see about that!’


Old Acquaintances

The nurse comes up to me and says, ‘Doreen wants your help, why did you refuse?' I feel awkward and do not want to rock the boat and say, ‘alright, I will help her.’ We get patients up and dressed, the care assistant orders me about and I feel very dumb. I feel my brain wanting to close off and I just want to go home. Everything I say is ignored by the care assistant. She wears brown epilates and is clearly very overweight. She orders me as though I am stupid. She rolls her eyes at me and is clearly aggressive. How did I get into this mess I think? Why exactly did I go to university to be ordered around by an overweight fascist with no education and her brown epilates are clearly quite appropriate. She sits at the nurses’ station and munches her way through a whole tin of Roses chocolates while talking about her son’s impending wedding to the other very interested nurses. One nurse is very young and looks at me now and again but tries very hard to be involved in the conversation in order to be accepted. The young nurse moans at me too as I try to find essential nursing resources in the cupboards. I am feeling more and more stupid. How soon they all forget they were once new here too. I am relived as I go for my breaks and I avoid the staff room as I am bored with hearing about Doreen’s son’s wedding. I wander into the canteen and see nurses from the old wards I escaped from. I feel awkward here too. I meet an old university colleague here but we just exchanged simple pleasantries as he seems immersed amongst his colleagues. The last time I saw him was just yesterday, he had moved wards because he hated it after all. I asked him if he was enjoying his new job but he said he hates that too and is looking for something else away from nursing. It reassures me I am not alone but confirms my theory that the current nursing culture is very bad indeed and is in need of an overhaul.


Beauty and the Beast

I watch the nurses as they show lack of care or respect for their patients or relatives let alone new colleagues like me. Nursing was never meant to be like this. Surely there is care and compassion and admittedly they are short staffed and overworked but in this ward at least and it may be true for others the aggressive care assistants are in charge.I, at least will remain true to who I am, remembering back to my dream many weeks ago with the elderly lady at the shore who told me to be myself. In my care at least I do all I can for patients and speak to them not like another patient but like a unique individual with a set of needs. I smile at my patients even although I feel bad in this environment. I make enemies because I am going against the tide of their normal culture and they hate me for it. Doreen does not get my respect or my interest in her son’s wedding. When I go home my mind is on what I could have done better to care for my patients. I listen to a lovely piano solo on my car stereo. In all things ugly there is always beauty. I take out my rubbish bins when I get home and relax reading my book.

Road To Nowhere

I got on to a big red double decker bus. I couldn’t find a seat and so I sat at the front upstairs. The bus took an unusual route and headed for the country. I turned around to see how many people were left on the bus. I was now alone. I couldn’t get off here because it was very far out of the city. I sat expecting the bus to change route but it didn’t. It turned and drove along the shore. I could see the sea but it wasn’t a calm day. The sea was throwing itself against the rocks turning white and frothy as it did so. The bus kept on going and the road became less than safe. It was narrow and we were driving along the edge, it felt like we could topple over into the sea. I felt frightened. Still the bus kept moving. It turned and creaked over the steep narrow roads. We were really high up over the sea, I kept looking out to see the journey ahead. The bus sped up and now we were going really fast. I saw a bigger bit road ahead and decided I would get off here. The driver looked angry at me as I left the bus. I was at the beach; it was now nice and sunny. To my left was the beach and to my right up the hill was a tennis court. The beach was full of people sunning themselves and children played in the sand. I looked up at the sky and it was changing from daylight to night time. The sun was blocked out by big black clouds. The sea was coming crashing in at a terribly fast rate. Everyone screamed as they tried to pick up their belongings before running away. The sea started to swell up onto the road where I was standing and I was up to my knees in it. I couldn’t move I was scared and even if I wanted to run there was nowhere to run all exists were blocked off. Why did I come this far, I thought?


I'm alright honest!

I jumped out of bed, looked at the clock and I had awoke ten minutes before my alarm. Driving on to work I couldn’t stop thinking about my dream. It was quite warm this morning and I looked up at the sky which still had some stars and was very clear. I wandered into the ward and before I could reach the room to get handover, the sister in charge said she wanted a word with me. She ushered me into a cold room with table and chairs. I sat down wondering what I had done. She had a mug of coffee in a cup with a cat on it. I looked at it as it was the only thing on the table to focus on. She began calmly by asking how I was getting on. I looked up in to her face, youth had deserted her a long time ago but she had a face that could be fixed up but anger had down turned her mouth and it had obviously set. She smelled of strong perfume and she had spilled something down her dark blue overall. Her eyes were a deep blue and she had died her hair a brown colour. Her face was darker than it should be with the tell tale signs of foundation lines around her chin. I said I was alright but then I went on to address some of the issue I had. I said I needed support in the ward to learn a new specialty not isolation. She went on to say that she was annoyed that I had contacted the union. She reminded me that she was my boss and if I have problems then I should address them to her. I said that while this may be true some of the staff is bullying me and I felt I could not speak to her. I said I can’t work in this environment. She got very angry with me and her top set of dentures slipped down as she shouted at me. ‘How dare you involve the union.’she said, ‘who do you, think you are?’ ‘What exactly is it you want’? She said. I told her calmly I just want to get on with my job and to be supported in that. She stood up and walked right over to my face, I could smell the coffee from her breath when she shouted ‘you are making me look like an idiot.’ I asked if that was all and could I go. I was quite scared but I dare not show her. ‘I want you to say everything here is alright, isn’t it?’ I replied, ‘er yes yes.’ I thought if I tell her what she wants to hear she will leave me alone. I reply, ‘well actually things were bad but now they are alright.’ She shouted at me, ‘GOOD!’ I put on a pretend smile and stood up. I walked down the ward feeling really scared. She had just bullied me and I needed to get out of here. In my break I phone the union and tell my steward what happened.

A date has been fixed for me to attend a meeting. I go into the meeting the next day feeling really anxious. I just want a peaceful life, going to work and then getting on with life but this has so far never happened. A woman from human resources and the directorate manager are there along with my steward. I am asked to discuss my issues with them. The directorate manager turned around and said that the sister said you are now alright now, is this true? I replied that I was not alright and I had to say this to get away from her as she was shouting at me. The meeting ends with me being allowed to work elsewhere. I am allowed to go home after the meeting. I am so happy to be away from this unit but through my experiences I do not know if things will be different anywhere else. Nursing has already got a set culture but surely there must be good places to work.


Enough To Raise Your Blood Pressure

I walk away with my back pack over my shoulder. I go into the staff canteen and see one of my old university mates. I ask how she is. She informs me that she is leaving nursing. I ask if she has contact with anyone else. She tells me that there are few of us left and that many have now gave up to do other work. I feel quite sad about it all, we all spent such a lot of time together and very few of us are happy. There must be a reason for this. Nursing is set in a busy environment were mistakes must not be made or we can be struck off. Paperwork is getting deeper and deeper. Our hours are long with very few breaks and we are always short staffed. This is a dangerous culture. It frightens me to think that any slip up could place me in front of the magistrate’s court. If you don’t document a patient’s condition, it didn’t happen; if you did it has to be precise. Omissions are just as bad as poorly written documentation. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Every piece of paper we sign our name too is a legal document. I like the way each ward has its own way of writing the notes and everyone blindly copies the same format for example, ‘patient had settled day, non-complaining, all care as planned’. One thing is, who on earth has a settled day in hospital? To write in the notes non-complaining, doesn’t say much about a patient at all. The best one is ‘all care as planned’. To write ‘all care as planned’ is obviously assuming the nurse has carried everything out that is to be carried out for the patient. However, if the nurse gets home and then realises she has forgotten to do something and the patient has an adverse reaction then the record of this has legally implicated her because she has stated that all care was given as planned. However, if the nurse writes nothing then the nurse could be deemed to not have carried out her duties.

There is no fool proof way of recording about patients but at best it pays to be honest. If the patient is complaining about pain, best write that the patient was complaining about pain and what you did as the nurse to alleviate it. As for observations, they are the most important key of how a patient is doing. If blood pressure is low or high and the patient looks well and is up and about, it pays to check back what their normal BP is because it may always be low or high and this could be their normal. New devices though are needed to cut out paperwork.
I walk out into the afternoon sun and go into my car which is boiling. I turn on my music and drive off with a sigh of relief over today. I just hope that my next ward is going to be alright.

Brainwashed

My mum is so old fashioned with views that could sink a battle ship. I go to visit her on my day off but I have more battles with her. She kept telling me that I need to settle down and have a husband look after me. She said I should not be working at all. She was blaming me for being outspoken. ‘Women should know when to keep their mouths closed’, she would say. I could feel the annoyance as I sat staring at her perfect little world obscured by society’s realities. Oh, to pull off her rose tinted glasses and put ‘my world’ specs on to her glazed over eyes. I told her that she should be proud of me, for here I am independent and with a view of my own. I pitied her, for I know she was a mere servant to my father and times did not allow her to live. They did what they were told by society and society was telling her how to keep her daughter in line. Socialisation breeds herds of sheep and my own parents trotted along with flock. My mother told me that if I had not been outspoken my first relationship would not have broke down. It was my fault because I must have said too much back and I am not content to be the housewife. I am outspoken, that is me. Thank you mother, you taught me not to be like you. However, I am not yet outspoken enough to deal with the bullies in nursing, I would go to work and do what I was told, like a good little girl. Just because I did not speak out openly did not stop my brain from speaking out. Alarms bells rang in every ward about how wrong the culture of nursing is, except for the few exceptional nurses of course.
I would lie awake every night wondering what I could do to make things right. This night was no exception and I lay in bed dreaming. The big black crow appeared again as it so often did, looking down waiting to swoop. The crow was about justice for all the wrong doings. At first I was looking up but then I became the crow looking down. I am eyes and ears and I see and hear everything but how do I tell everyone what goes on? I have no voice. I watch the breakfasts dished up to the patients, who is ensuring those who are weakest are fed? Heavy duty painkillers and antibiotics, dehydration with little food is enough to floor the strongest let alone the weakest. ‘Come on Mrs Brown you need to eat and I have no time to stand here and feed you because after lunch I need to hand out your tablets, there is only one of me to fifteen patients right now, how do I manage this workload?’ The nurse looked stressed and worn and was doing her best but her best was not good enough, she was understaffed. She would give out the drugs but was so distracted by the millions of jobs in between she would forget to sign for drugs and leave drugs lying around. She heard a moan from the corner of the ward and realised that the patient had soiled herself again. She looked at the distressed patient and it was up the patient’s back. Nobody was around to help her clean the patient up and she was in the middle of the drug round. What could she do, the patient is too heavy to lift alone? Relatives walk in and find their mother covered in faeces. Sister comes out her office to discover the angry relatives. Instead of being understanding Sister blames the nurse. Finally after months of this, the nurse snaps and gets angry, patients and colleagues suffer, so long as the jobs are done, who cares about being nice, being nice has no place in nursing. As for smiling, that is well wiped off the nurse’s face. Who is this nurse? The nurse is the seventy per cent of nurses. To get the job done they learn to bully because they do not want Sister breathing down their neck. Sister is the evil dark blue Troll who lives in the office and only comes out to belittle the nurses. They feed the culture of bullying. They are at the top of the bullying hierarchy. I fear becoming one of that seventy per cent that it haunts me in my sleep. I wake up from the alarm on my phone. I go through my usual routine to get to work. I work beside an angry elderly nurse who bosses me around. Patients get a bed bath at 5am in this ward. I stare up at the cracks in all the paintwork and the tiles in the ceiling are loose. The sinks have seen better days and it is impossible to get near them due to the patients beds. Many nurses in this ward ignore washing their hands just because it is part of the culture. This ward is an exception; it is not like other wards. It is the quintessence of evil wards. I would like this ward condemned along with the heartless mean staff that run it. Run in and save all the patients then cover it up for all eternity in dirt. It holds up to its well known reputation. Nobody wants to work here and there are always vacancies. Everyone knows about their bullying. What does HR do about it? They do nothing, for they know what goes on here but choose to ignore it. One nurse after another leaves and some odd nurses stay to join the ranks of the bullies. The bullies have become one big gigantic ego driven organism feeding off any new staff coming in. Dr Who writers could never dream up such a disgusting nausea filled monster. HR does not have the guts to fight that type of monster and so it eternally lurks in the old part of the hospital waiting to pounce on new recruits. Join nursing if you dare for you may be sent here. I never knew that women could be so hostile and so brash with patients. If I disobey them, I will suffer. How do I escape this ward? I consider giving up nursing for good and quickly go home after work to apply for jobs. Supermarkets are beginning to have some appeal to work in. How did nursing get so bad? Working in Sister Poppins ward was heaven compared to here. How do I get out? I sit in my car staring out at the setting sun which I missed again today, wondering, how people have become such sheep and how they say nothing but follow everyone else. I am no follower but I am alone. I have a long hard road ahead of me and I can see nothing new on the horizon.
"Every Day Is Exactly The Same"

I believe I can see the future
Cause I repeat the same routine
I think I used to have a purpose
But then again
That might have been a dream
I think I used to have a voice
Now I never make a sound
I just do what I've been told
I really don't want them to come around

Oh, no

Every day is exactly the same
Every day is exactly the same
There is no love here and there is no pain
Every day is exactly the same

I can feel their eyes are watching
In case I lose myself again
Sometimes I think I'm happy here
Sometimes, yet I still pretend
I can't remember how this got started
But I can tell you exactly how it will end

I'm writing on a little piece of paper
I'm hoping someday you might find
Well I'll hide it behind something
They won't look behind
I'm still inside here
A little bit comes bleeding through
I wish this could have been any other way
But I just don't know, I don't know what else I can do
Written by NIN

Night Shift

It is 15.30 and I need to get up for my night shift. I stare over at the flashing red lights on my alarm clock wishing I could lie here just extra few hours more. I haven’t slept well, I was on day shift just a day ago and my body clock has not adjusted at all. I will need to try to have something to eat before work and I find it hard to eat through the night. It seems so abnormal. I eat some pasta and throw some fruit into my bag. I drive through the dark city as it all winds down for another night. It is cold and I turn up the heating in my car. I have my music to wake me up but I am tired and wonder how I will get through tonight. I stare up at a shining star that looks so lonely I also feel quite alone here but I know deep inside I am gaining strength to fight on. I get to the car park entrance and notice that spaces are few. I wander up the stairs feeling the dread build up with each step. I go into the ward but it is quiet and the smell of finished cooked food hits my nostrils. I see relatives sitting around beds like they were sitting around a camp fire gaining warmth, realising how precious these people in beds really are. A relative looks up at me and smiles saying goodbye to me as he walks gingerly out the door. I do not know this man but I am a nurse and my duty is to be happy and polite even though sometimes I feel miserable. I say goodbye to this relative I may not know him but I do not know his pain either and for that reason I have to be polite.
I sit in handover listening to this god awful tape with blurry sounds and no way of understanding spellings and pronunciations. I hope nobody sees my handover sheet. I beg anyone to listen to a tape of anyone speaking and try to copy down what is being said. Let’s face it, we are a multi-cultural society and I do not know spellings of names from many other cultures by someone attempting to pronounce it on a blurry tape. Print outs are better and accurate. I go out on to the ward; I need to look after eighteen patients with another nurse and a care assistant which seems not too bad. One patient is quite ill though and may not get through the night and another patient has just been diagnosed with cancer. I get the patients settled for the night and the male patient who was diagnosed with cancer sits staring blankly into the air. My instinct wants to walk away from him because it means confronting the situation and I know that his situation will hurt me inside too because I guess I am very empathic. My nature however, tells me it is my duty to speak to him and spend time with him. You know when someone gets a diagnosis like this it is always the small little things that make life for the patients hard. I list many support groups but I sit on the chair by the bed understanding the patient and what he is going through. He does not have children but always wanted them and so many things in his life are left unfulfilled. I can’t make everything right but I can be there and that’s all that matters. I know I have other patients to attend but I need to give this patient my attention too. He does not look ill but inside his head is swirling like a tornado and I need to put some calm in there to be able to help him think rationally. We are nurses, taught to care for the physical ailments of pain but of the psychological pain many nurses do not know how, but it is our duty to be there.
The patient breaks down in tears and I wish I could wave a wand and make it all better but I can’t and so I am filled with his pain in this same room. I am sharing his pain, it rips me apart. I give so much more of me than what I get in my pay. I should cut off from the hurt of people’s pain but I am definitely human and I have a duty. I sigh with a heavy heart as I walk slowly out his room; he is only thirty years old, and why is life so cruel?

Sleeping Salvation

All the patients are asleep now or at least I think so. I wander back and forward in the night looking at the patients. It is time for my hour break at 3.00am and I go to the staff room. I set my alarm on my phone and sit on the chair and accidentally nod off. Abruptly, a big nurse walks in shouting that there is to be no sleeping in the staff room. I awake suddenly, to see an overweight nurse shouting at me about sleeping. Hang on I think, this is my hour, I am not being paid for it and I am not on duty. I ask her what I have done wrong. She said that if I was needed in a hurry I would not be fit. I said that I am not being paid and did not need to go back to work until the end of my break. I said that if this was day shift I could be in the staff canteen for an hour and no-one could get me there. I also said that I did not sleep well in the day time which is quite common for those on night shift. The nurse mumbled something back at me but to be honest I did not care.

Breaks are For Resting!

Night shifts are strange because nobody admits to needing a sleep but everyone is tired and nobody admits to sleeping on their breaks in case they get into trouble but many nurses do it. Oh dear, I have given away a little secret. It is obviously more productive to have nurses that power nap on their break because they will be more refreshed. It has been scientifically proven that power naps work and are more productive. I mean, many nurses still need to give out drugs in the early morning after a twelve and a half hour shift. I know if I was to get drugs from a nurse who had been awake all night I would rather it was from the one that had the power nap.
I go back to the ward feeling better for my nap and see that there is a patient who is not too well. The other nurse was not aware. I tell her that the patient looks ill and I check observations. Observations say it all; the patient is not to be resuscitated as he would not make it anyway. I hold his hand and stroke his forehead as he passes away very peacefully. The relatives are on their way already. We deal with the patient in the usual manner and get him ready for visitors. Other patients sleep through the night oblivious to the events. The other nurse yawns as she shoves in crisps to her mouth like a steam train needing coal for fuel. As for me, I have slept and am wide awake and have made do with fruit all night. We dish out drugs in the morning and check patient observations. We ensure that our fluid balance charts are done and that patients are comfortable. After handover, I walk along the ward and each patient thanks me for my care. The patient with cancer speaks to me and shows hurt in his face. He taps me on my arm awkwardly saying thanks for my kindness. He has tears in his eyes and I know I must go. I wander down the stairs and pick up a newspaper as I leave. It is cold outside but it is sunny again and it hurts my eyes but it feels good.

From The Heart

Inevitability

I am dreading going to work today. My boss may know I have said something now and I am worried she takes it out on me. I wander slowly into the ward looking down at the highly polished floor. A cheery smiling Polish cleaner all dressed in green smiles at me and says ‘cheer up miss, it surely is not that bad.’ I smile back knowing that this cleaner is always smiling. I wished I could be so happy in my work. I say hello to him and say that 'I am sure I will be alright.' I always speak to the cleaners, they provide a great service in the hospital and they often get such bad media attention for our hospitals being dirty. Their salary too is terrible. If your hospital is dirty don’t blame the cleaners they are an easy target, it is down to poor staffing and the nurses extended roles. We are supposed to clean up body fluids, mattresses, beds the lot. It is often difficult to clean everything when there is lack of staff. My priorities are the patients and you may argue that cleaning does affect patient health. It does, but if I have a dying patient while at the same time I need to clean a patient locker. My choice is always the patient. If we do not have enough staff then we must always prioritise. It annoys me that they say also that we never wash our hands. Of course we do and who the hell has time to record our frequency of hand washing with statistics, please get a life! Spend the money on getting us some staff please? Oh and one more thing while we are on this subject, I bet those that design hospitals never regularly burn their hands on the hot taps, most of the wards I am in do not have mixer taps and the water is too hot. Come on those doing the research, let me watch you put your hands under a scalding tap. If you do research you need to account for all your intervening variables like scalding hot taps. Oh, well, I have reached the report room and I walk in. I almost sit down when Sister Poppins walks through the door very harshly. She stares at me in a very frightening way. She does not speak, and just keeps staring at me. I feel on edge and so I just stand looking back like the rabbit staring at the headlights. I observe the red blotches around her nose, she must have been blowing it again she always does that. I also see the pink coloured lipstick that has missed her mouth and strayed into the creases up above her lips. Her hair looks neat today but her eyes are filled with rage. I could almost swear she has the rage virus out of the film 28 Weeks but she is doing her best to hide it. There is a whole lot of psychology going on between us. I feel like we are two angry cats sizing each other up. My anger is through being tortured. I feel hate towards her for what she is putting me through and I am filling up with emotion and I want to shout at her. I just want her to treat me like a normal human being. I would love to write here in words what went through my head but somehow this does not come easy and perhaps only those who have been bullied would understand that. We both gently backed away like two cats, not daring to show our backs.

Rebel with a Cause

She walked out the room. Everyone who was sitting down asked each other what that was about. I looked down at the grey carpet and shrugged my shoulders. I was not part of their team because I was ostracised anyway, she had made sure of that. I was always sent away. Today was no different; I walked away along the corridor to a ward I had not been in. I walk in and it is quiet. I am just in time to hear their report. So perfectly put, with good handover sheets and the nurses verbalising the patients’ conditions. I discuss with the nurse who I am working with, our plans for the general organisation of our shift. She comes over as being really nice. She tells me she is from Africa and she has a lovely manner with the patients. I can tell she really enjoys her job; she is a real nursing gem. We coordinate our work well. One thing, I do notice is that this ward shares facilities with the ward next door. A patient asks me for a drink of water and I go to the shared kitchen. I search everywhere for glasses and jugs. There are none other than a tray with many glasses and jugs on a trolley with a big white sheet of paper on top, with writing clearly marked in red pen, “Everything on this trolley is for the use of patients in ward 14 only” So, rather than annoy anyone, I went back to the other nurse and asked what we do for jugs and glasses. She said, that we just need to search around and that the staff on the other ward gets annoyed if we use their equipment. I search everywhere and I go to the main kitchen. All I see are tea cups. This is insane, I am searching everywhere for a container to get a glass of water and there is a trolley with jugs on it. Do we not share the same hospital? So, my patient should become dehydrated and do without water? Not on my duty they won’t. I go back to the kitchen and take a jug and glass from the trolley, feeling like a real rebel. Oh and if they complained when they counted their glasses and jugs I left them a little note to say, ‘I am sorry but I took the glass and jug because I thought we all work for the same NHS and patients come first.’ This insanity is rife in our hospitals. This equipment belongs to our ward and you can’t use it. Let us thrash this nonsense out, so we have a pot of money that goes to the NHS and it obviously gets shared out between services. So, wards have their own budgets and they want to keep what they have bought for their own patients. So, there is perhaps some logic in what they are trying to achieve but it has created room for nonsense and utter misery when trying to care for patients. How about we have a central store in a hospital and if we need equipment we go and get it, that’s more logical. Why are we short of anything in the first place? It’s crazy that we have nurses hoarding sheets, towels and other items to stop it being used by any other wards. Stop this insanity now!

What’s your Poison?

I spend the majority of my shift taking disorientated patients safely back to bed as they go for a wander. Many of them are at risk of falling and are so fragile that if they do fall they will break a bone. I give an elderly patient her medication, she is very confused. She asks me if I am a poisoning her. I smile and pat her gently on the shoulder and say ‘of course not but I am sure it will taste like poison.’ She looks up at my face which is very close to mine as I am leaning over smiling at her. She says, ‘I know you wouldn’t poison me dear, you have a very nice caring face.’ This fills me with warmth. I go through and speak to a male patient who has written some questions for me on a piece of paper. He asks why he is not a candidate for an operation as he has been told by consultants that he will not be fit enough for it. I look at his history and note he has a very bad heart condition. I say that I do not quite know the specifics of what the consultant said but my guess could be due to his heart problems. He informed me of languages he spoke and mentioned his big academic background. I looked at him and could see that he was now very frail. He seemed very proud of his academia. I showed an interest and asked about his languages. I got him to teach me some words and he smiled at his opportunity to use it. He told me I was a real tonic and that nobody in here speaks to him. Sometimes we can be so busy that we just deal with the physical ailments of a person that we ignore the whole person. The man smiled and I wished I could speak longer but had to deal with other patients. It was just nice to see him smile. Smiling is a good healer. It is a pity I could not do more for another patient. The lady was too ill to be resuscitated and would not make it if the doctors made any attempt. This side of nursing can be sad. We need to comfort these patients until their heartbeats are no more. This lady had terminal cancer and there was nothing more that could be done. The other nurse and I noticed how she was deteriorating. I quickly phoned her husband to say that his wife was very poorly and he must come quickly. While awaiting the husband, the patient slowly slipped away while we both held her frail soft hands. There is always an air of serenity and death always emits the same odour but it is not a foul odour, it is just death. We quickly tidied the patient up and changed her clothes to make her presentable. I brushed her hair and gently closed her wide open mouth. Music plays..."Thoughts Of A Dying Atheist, Muse"

Eerie whispers
trapped beneath my pillow
won't let me sleep
your memories

and I know you're in this room
I'm sure I heard you sigh
Floating in between
where our worlds collide

scares the hell out of me
and the end is all I can see
and it scares the hell out of me
and the end is all I can see

and I know the moment's near
and there's nothing you can do
look through a faithless eye
are you afraid to die?

it scares the hell out of me
and the end is all I can see
and it scares the hell out of me
and the end is all I can see

It scares the hell out of me
and the end is all I can see
and it scares the hell out of me
and the end is all I can see
Love Hurts

Birth and death bring opposite emotions but are both inevitable in life. We need to present death to the relatives with great care as it has lasting closure on an individual’s life. When the husband appeared I knew the patient was already dead and so I calmly asked him to come with me to the relatives’ room, knowing I had to tell him the bad news. It is always such a long walk. The silence to the relatives’ room is always so difficult. I imagined their long life together and how difficult it would be for this man left without his wife. I sat him down in the room and I sat close to him. He stared at me searching my face in desperation. I went through the sequence of events and told him with great care. I sat for a little while just listening to him talk while the news digested inside him unfolding like a flower in spring opening up for the first time. Tears rolled from his eyes and I knew my words came like boulders hitting him deep in the heart but I could not lessen them. I could feel my own emotion as usual and the knot in my stomach as I felt my own brown eyes glass over. I put my arm on his shoulder. I said that his wife is waiting on him if he would like to say goodbye. His family joined him as they came rushing up the corridor to hear the bad news. They all broke down in tears. I escorted them to the patient. I put down chairs for them and told them they can spend as long as they like. This was now their time, I patted the husband on the shoulder gently showing I care and left the room. I wanted to wrap my wings around them all and make their hurt go away but love hurts.

I pick up my rucksack and throw it over my shoulder. My shift is finished, my shift was difficult but I worked with a nice nurse. My meeting with my bosses and my union is next week. I wonder what to have for my tea, I have not eaten much today and my mouth is dehydrated as usual, we had no water dispenser let alone a cup to drink out today. I drive off, thinking of the relatives I left behind and how they will be left to cope. I turn on music by Incubus and the song is Love Hurts.

Tonight we drink to youth
And holding fast to truth
don't want to lose what I had as a boy
My heart still has a beat
But love is now a feat
(as common as a cold day in LA)

Sometimes when I'm alone I wonder
Is there a spell that I am under
Keeping me from seeing the real thing

Love hurts.....
But sometimes it's a good hurt
And it feels like I'm alive
Love sings
When it transcends the bad things
Have a heart and try me
'Cause without love I won't survive.

I'm fettered and abused
Stand naked and accused
Should I surface this one man submarine
I only want the truth
So tonight we drink to youth
I'll never lose what I had as a boy

Sometimes when I'm alone, I wonder
Is there a spell that I am under
Keeping me from seeing the real thing


Love hurts
But sometimes it's a good hurt
And it feels like I'm alive
Love sings
When it transcends the bad things
Have a heart and try me
'Cause without love I won't survive

Love hurts
But sometimes it's a good hurt
And it feels like I'm alive
Love sings
When it transcends the bad things
Have a heart and try me
'Cause without love I won't survive

Love hurts, oh
Love hurts
Without love I won't survive
Love hurts, oh
Love hurts
Without love I won't survive

A Price To Pay (part 11)

It’s time to get up. I hate getting up in the morning probably the same as everyone else who needs to get up for work. The difference is that I have twelve and a half hours ahead of me and I have a bad cold. My legs ache and I keep sneezing. I can’t stay off because Sister Poppins will moan because she expects the sick call the night before. I wished I could go out next week because all my friends are going to the theatre to see a great show and I will be working. I got my off duty just yesterday and as usual it is very late. I can never plan anything as a nurse. My mum and dad have still been trying to phone me and I am thinking that I had better call them or they may think something is wrong and phone the police. They are a bit like that, my mum and dad. My university mates have been in touch and it is great to hear from them. I met some nice people on my course but such a shame, such a change, they are all so different. I feel that they resemble battle wounded soldiers. They have seen so much in such a short time and I am no different but I am now seeing what is happening around me in the NHS! I know I was always destined to help people and that is why I am a nurse. The money has never motivated me but it would be nice to be able to live a reasonable life without debt and just get a little more for the job I do. Will that come to me, who knows? It is time for handover and I am sitting waiting. Everyone comes through to the office and I fix my squint badge with my name on it and I adjust my blond hair so that it is away from my face. I look up to see Sister Poppins and Mrs F Flat. I think I will be taught a bed bath today. Patients are obviously discussed during handover and I try to contribute but I am looked upon like I am the cleaner contributing to patient care. Sister Poppins ignores me. I do not respect her, I resent her and I do not like working here. I need to get out and go to employment where I feel welcome. Who wants a drop out nurse though? I think about possibilities but let’s face it I am stuck, I am in prison. What about my friends from university? The people I am in touch with are having a bad time and wished they had not done nursing. My friends are unable to buy a house and have a normal life; they can just share flats, great! I am told that I need to be a nurse today and not a care assistant. I get on with my job!

Coughs And Sneezes Spread Diseases

A patient is brought in from another ward and is placed in a side room. The relative is outside it speaking to Nurse Ratchet. Nurse Rathchet has a hand on her hip and still wears the nurses dress uniform. I wear a tunic and trousers. The trousers do not fit they are too baggy. I look at some paperwork on the desk and over hear them talking. Nurse Ratchet is not a caring person and the relative does not understand this infection and attempts to ask questions. Relatives and patients are outside our little medical knowledge ring. I think it is still important to realise that the public are far more informed than they used to be. The relative asks what infection her husband has and I hear the nurse avoiding the truth. I know that the infection is Clostridum difficile and the nurse is avoiding telling her. Maybe if nurses could be honest the situation would not be so out of hand. The public know when we are being secretive. It is obviously most annoying for anyone to have this condition but it is common and the only way to beat it is by being up front and honest. Let’s face it, the main cause is antibiotic usage and although people who are already very ill are often the most vulnerable it is antibiotics that are the cause. Why the secrecy? It can obviously spread around a ward fairly quick which is why patients get put into side rooms. Hygiene therefore, also becomes important. Hygiene is a big issue in hospitals especially with a high turnover of patients. In the area Jabba the hutt works, the old part of the hospital, hygiene is really bad. Sister Poppins runs a very tight ship and hygiene is very high on her list but sometimes to the detriment of the patients. The trouble is the design of many hospitals only supplies so many side rooms, so few patients can be isolated at a time. The trouble with poor hygiene too is that everyone uses equipment going from patient to patient. How many nurses go around taking blood pressures and do not bother to clean the cuffs and oxygen saturation probes in between patients? We can’t assume patients are clean. Patients quite regularly have a commode taken to their bedside but never have anything to wipe their hands. Doctors also walk about in their normal clothing going from bedside to bedside with their stethoscopes. I think they must hide somewhere to clean it because I have never seen anyone clean them. Why are doctors allowed to wear their normal clothes while we wear uniforms? Anyway, Nurse Ratchet’s tone goes up as she attempts to convince the relative that it is just a mild infection and it is very common. She avoids the name. It is a bit like the Scottish play that we dare not mention. It is like going back in time, don’t go out in the cold or you will catch a chill? Some nurses are just scared to say what the problem is. It reminds me of the patient that died and the nurse informs the relative, ‘I am sorry but she has gone.’ Before the nurse can explain the relative is shouting, ‘where has she gone how could you let her walk out?’ Nurses also ask patients ‘have you gone today?’ ‘Have you been?’ I remember the funniest I ever heard was with this male patient and the nurse is trying to ask tactfully about his bowels. The patient is not from this country so is confused by what she is saying. The nurse attempts many times with gestures and different ways of saying it. Finally, the patient catches on and with a smile and a glint in his eyes shouts. ‘Are you asking if I have crapped?’ The nurse’s face goes red and I need to leave the room because I am in fits of giggles. Nurse language is really awful and we should just say a thing how it is. Nurses learn to lie very quickly. When a nurse looks at the wound of a patient and there is this smell of rotten flesh with seepage and the patient asks the nurse how the wound looks the nurse screws up her face trying to avoid the smell while saying, ‘actually it is not that bad.’ We could not possibly say to the patient, ‘actually it smells absolutely awful and just looking at it makes me want to throw up.’ So lying to protect patients is common. But we do need to evaluate when lying is the right thing to do. MRSA is the other one that patients fear and so nurses avoid using the term. In this situation the relative raises her anxious voice and rather than reassure the relative, nurse Ratchet shouts back. Relatives are anxious and sometimes it is through this anxiousness that they become angry with nursing staff. So many attacks on nurses could be avoided from the start by the nurse showing patience and care. There are a percentage of patients and relatives though that will just have a tendency to lash out. People are unpredictable. Thankfully, I have never been hurt, so far. The relative gets angrier with nurse Ratchet and demands to see the doctor. Ratchet looks uncontrollably angry. The whole angry scene could have been avoided. Nurses often do not have people skills, sad, but true, there I said it. This same nurse Ratchet thinks I do not possess the skills to give a bed bath as she was discussing this with Mrs F Flat. The relative talks to the doctor stating that she plans to put forward a complaint.

Those That Can Do, Those That Can’t Teach.

I deal with all my patients, helping get them breakfast up, washed and dressed. The buzzers go all morning and I am fetching and carrying and juggling my work. There are many things I need to remember in my head all at once. I feel exhausted because I have the cold. I needed to organise my annual leave but I was scared to go near Sister to ask her anything in case she made trouble for me. She is not approachable at all. I spoke to one of the care assistants who reminded me that I have the right to my annual leave. I decided to write down my request of annual leave a few weeks ago in the manner she requested staff to do it. My request was left untouched while everyone else was getting theirs granted or nullified. At least they got theirs dealt with. I was getting tired and I had been working solidly for months without holidays. I asked for just three days off. Sister Poppins came over to me and very seriously said to me that she could only grant me an afternoon. Her eyes showed hatred towards me and I just could never understand why. I took the afternoon she gave me but was disappointed. There was no long lie in bed! I had looked in the annual leave book and noted that no other nurse was off and there was lots of staff on that day. I could not understand her, I knew she just did not like me and she wanted to make life hard. After all my running about I was called into the side room to watch a bed bath. My brain had trouble staying awake! She made such a meal of it. If I could spend this long over a bed bath none of the patients would be out of bed until afternoon. Nurse Ratchet spoke to me like I was a little naughty girl. I no longer felt like the little naughty girl. I felt like an adult who was being taught by someone who was attempting to keep me down by intimidation tactics. I did not let her bring me down or any of the other nurses and after many months of being treated less than human I was beginning to feel angry. Anger was welling up and it was not sudden, it was over a space of time. I would not show my anger, I kept it locked inside because it was not professional and if my anger gets the better of me then they have won. The trouble with anger is that it has to come out somewhere and just because I did not get angry back did not mean my anger did not come out. When I went home, my moods plummeted. I was not friendly and sociable anymore. My phone would ring and I would ignore it because I felt too unsociable to speak. My friends would still ask me out but I could never get out anyway. I was always given off duty for the weekend. I was cutting myself off from everybody. I was a loner, I really was in prison. From somewhere I gained this surge of energy to fight back and I continue to do so. I have not won yet but that means banning all bullying from work. In nursing there is a culture of nurses who think that being critical in a nasty way is helping develop the skills of the nurse. On the 17th October 2007 The Times Online had a story about the nurse of the year quitting her post as nurse “A “Nurse of the Year” is leaving her job because of the strain of working for the NHS in an atmosphere of “mistrust and fear”, in response to the article a nurse wrote in to state “They send the matrons down to put pressure on the staff which is causing more harm than good considering most of the matrons are in the job for the power trip.” The Sister’s are just as bad in many cases. On the 22nd of October there was an article titled ‘Pay a nurse peanuts and what do you get?’The discussion is about the columnist sitting vigil in ICU. From the outset ICU is so different from the wards and it is a very specialist type of nurse who is trained to work in ICU. It is also compulsory for a high nurse to patient ratio, which is also why funding ICU is so costly. ICU can never be compared to the wards. It is a little like comparing theatres to the wards as the skills needed can be so different. In both theatres and ICU much of the time patients are very heavily sedated so patients generally are not up and walking about. Theatre staff can be very good in anaesthetic rooms with very frightened patients going for operations. They are also very good in recovery. A lot of what happens in theatres is often hidden away and so poor theatre staff can be forgotten by patients. Still, in response to this article a nurse wrote, “I am tired of hearing about the poor under paid nurses, the angels. In many cases I have found nurses on general wards very uncaring and bad tempered. We are told they are too busy to help patients with their food and take them to the toilet.” In my response to this, if I was working night shift, I could share some thirty two patients with just one other nurse and a care assistant. I would love to ensure that all patients’ needs rightly are cared for but I have no control over staffing levels. If it is any consolation I think it is a disgrace that anyone is left in their own urine or pooh! It is true that many nurses are uncaring and it is a shame that the bad ones ruin it for all of us. If the owner of this comment had to run around all night for twelve and a half hours with just two half hour breaks, clearing up pooh, sick and all other bodily fluids with lack of staff I am sure she would also be bad tempered. Some nurses are lazy and some take their frustration out on the patients, these people are the rotten apples. I am physically and mentally exhausted after each shift. Why should NHS management sit on their big fat salaries with no real insight into what we put up with? When it all goes pear shaped, I know lets blame the nurses. Someone also wrote “Nursing leadership and example at ward level are absent with professional advice, correction and challenge, if it's ever given, regarded as 'bullying'. This could only come from a Sister. When the pressure mounts, the Sister is standing well behind the battle lines at her desk with her nice civilised day time hours, being allowed to go home at four in the afternoon. She can also choose when she goes on holiday. This comment is exactly the management style I mentioned earlier. It is outdated and in need of repair. I am glad she mentioned bullying because in other occupations it is clearly recognised as that. It is one thing giving correction and challenge but when I am doing my work, I do not want someone coming up to me while I am with my patients giving me random maths tests out the blue. I also do not want correction in front of patients which is utterly demoralising. I also do not want to be shown skills that I can clearly do. I do not only want spoken to too when I am deemed to have done something wrong. What is also wrong with praise when I am doing my job right? I never get that! In the older days nursing did not have the high level of academia that it does now. I have served my time at university which the Nursing and Midwifery Council are happy with and this proves I can carry out my job, while extra courses keep my skills up to date. There is nothing in any written documentation stating that I must constantly be given maths tests or be shown basic care over and over when I clearly have the skills. I am an adult not a child. I am the registered nurse who is accountable for my own practice. I need to know my limits and if I mess up it is me that loses my registration. If these Sisters or any other senior member of staff demonstrate the wrong way to do things and I follow this practice, if they are wrong, is it any defence in court to say I was just copying the Sisters practice. They would then ask, ‘if you saw someone jump from a bridge would you copy it?’ Would the Sister stand happily beside me supporting me all the way? I doubt it; I would be on my own, in a boat, without a paddle heading into the direction of Lonesville. I need to know my own limits and my nursing parameters. If I don’t know I will ask. In the older days of nursing, Sisters may have used this challenge approach to gauge what level nurses where at. Many of these outdated Sisters do not have academic qualifications themselves. I now challenge them to gain a degree qualification on a minimum nursing bursary. Let’s face it, how many times do Sisters make mistakes. I see them making mistakes all the time. Who corrects and challenges them at ward level? The point I am making is we are all human and humans by our very nature make mistakes. What we do not want is costly mistakes, which is why I never carry procedures that I am not trained to carry out. If I make a small mistake in the ward, I do not expect to get my head blown off for it and screamed at. What I would like is for someone to take me aside and say to me that I made a mistake and show me what I did wrong. I can take it, I am an adult and do not need shouted at in front of patients like the naughty child. It is all about the manner in which it is delivered. Better management skills are required please? Sisters need to go back to school!

McDonalds Has Come to Nursing

I watched this bed bath and learned nothing new. I would have been of far more use helping patients get to the toilet. Nurse Ratchet looked smug as she went over to speak to Sister Poppins while rubbing alcohol gel on her hands. She could not make it clearer she wants that vacancy. The interviews for the job are to be held in a few weeks. What more misery will she cause until she gets the job? I go to lunch to meet up with another friend who is leaving nursing. If the ‘Nurse of the Year’ leaves nursing and all my university friends are leaving there must be some size of a turnover in nursing. Maybe we have the same staff turnover as McDonalds. Scientific management views society as moving towards the fast food restaurant by efficiency, the optimal method for accomplishing a task. Calculability, objective should be quantifiable (i.e. sales) rather than subjective (i.e. taste), Predictability, standardized and uniform services, Control, standardized and uniform employees, replacement of human by non-human technologies. Nursing staff are easily replaceable, we are drones. Agenda for Change has devised the roles. The job description is standardized and the human qualities do not matter anymore. So, for example a nurse who comes along with years of experience who has gone through years of university needs to start alongside those other nurses who have the minimum qualifications. It is no longer about the individual qualities. Anyone with a brain who is treated like a drone from day one will not last long in nursing because it is the equivalent of sitting at the checkout at Tescos. So, what happens is they leave and gain employment in an area where their skills and qualifications are matched. Management does not care if we do not like the job or we fail at what we do because it is like pulling off another bin bag from the roll. We are easily replaceable. The sad side to this is that it is patients that pay the costs. How much does it cost to train each nursing student and then when the wards are left short staffed when the nurses can no longer cope, it takes time to get someone new in. New staff are not always efficient because they have not been given adequate support due to the bad training on placements in the hospitals but when they make a mistake it is their fault, they are blamed and they are struck off. How about doing something to keep existing staff? How about ensuring students are supported properly and not in the current bullying manner that goes on which teaches students that to ask questions is dumb.

The Spider Fights The NHS

After my evening break I sit down and fill out my notes while all the relatives ask me questions and the phone rings incessantly. Relatives who are used to being fobbed off come in with an attitude from the start. Many of them see I am not like some of these other nurses who are hostile and cold. I build a rapport with them; I get given lovely cards and get many a thank you when I try my best. I am open and honest with them all. I am there for the patients but I am a wave going in a slightly different direction from many others. I will fight for my patients but I also need to fight this horrible old nursing culture. I have two swords to cut through all of this but I am just one woman on the bottom rung of a two rung ladder. I am willing to fight, how many others will side with me? The NHS is worth fighting for and if all these good people leave we will be left with a poorer service than ever. When I look through the charts I notice that other nurses have forgotten to fill out certain parts. I do not blame them, I understand that patients must come first but try telling that to the Sister. It is nearly time for the end of my shift. I have spent a long day with my patients and I also think it is good courtesy just to say good night to them. They are not all the perfect patients and I am not the perfect nurse. I will never be Sister Poppins. I am me, I am human. On the way out I bump into relatives who want to chat and who want my knowledge of directions. I see relatives when I am out and about on my days off and they remember my name. I see a few care assistants I know as I leave. They are puffing away on cigarettes before they go in to do their night shift. We smile and wave at each other. I am now not far from my car. I am now feeling hungry and I take a tissue out my bag to wipe my nose. My cold still feels bad. I keep worrying that my mum and dad will wonder what is wrong with me. I take my mobile out my bag and dial their number, my mum answers and I say, ‘Hi mum it is me, I am alright, I am off in a couple of days and will come along to see you both.’ I wind down the window in the car to wipe away the rain from my mirror. I notice a spider making a web in the rain while being bombarded with water. It slips several times but does not give up. Is that what Robert the Bruce saw? If it was good enough for him, it is certainly good enough for me. ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try try and try again.’ Bullying is a fight we need to be in together. We all need to be in it to win it.

Education Is Not Just For Muppets (part 10)

As I walked past a porter in the hospital, he smiles and asks ‘well, were will you be based today?’ I tell him I am back to the old bit of the hospital again. ‘I do not think I have seen you in the same ward twice’ he laughs. ‘What are you today nurse or care assistant?’ ‘Actually, who knows,’ I say. ‘I am used all over and mostly as a care assistant,’ I moan. He laughs again and says, ‘I wonder when you will become a porter for the day.’ I have had my nurse training and now stagnation and degeneration. I heard a nurse say that if a ward is short of care assistants it is cheaper for them to use a band 5 nurse than to bring in an agency care assistant. I feel cheap! I have spoken to this porter a lot because I get all the accompanying the patients jobs to places such as the X-ray Department. The porter looks hard worked and tired but he always smiles. I have often moaned to him about Sister Poppins and he just laughs but he knows she has a reputation for being a tyrant. I feel sorry for the porters because they are on such poor pay for the jobs they do. They are always patient and they spend such a lot of their time walking at the beckoning call of everyone. The porter made me think of the character from the anti war film Platoon, Sergeant Elias, played by William Dafoe. He did his job and was a reasonable person. His quote from the film sums him up. “I love this place at night. The stars... there's no right or wrong in them. They're just there.” Elias the porter was just there too and always at the right time. I get to the old part of the hospital and feel the draught and watch the goose pimples appear on my arms. I look outside to see that it is raining again and I watch patients huddle in the doorway in their dressing gowns and slippers with a chimney of smoke going in all directions from their cigarettes. I go along the corridor and report to the nurses’ station. Jabba the Hutt catches the corner of my eye. She is sitting in the same place I saw her when I did my night shift with her. I wonder if she has moved at all since then. She is not eating biscuits but has a giant sized bag of tortilla chips. It is just after 8am and I ask what the plans are for me here today. She states that I am to help her today. I had a big sinking feeling, I felt like I was standing on a pile of mud and suddenly it turned to mush and I was being drowned in it. I am given many tasks all at once. I am as usual a care assistant cleaning, washing and toileting, the usual procedures. The only good bit about this is that I am being paid a nursing salary for a care assistant’s role. The downfall was though that I am actually a nurse and while carrying out any of these procedures even as a care assistant I am still liable as a nurse. I trained as a nurse and wasted many hours studying even being shown how to run a ward. The more I am used as a care assistant my skills will lessen as a nurse. As for job satisfaction there is none because I am task driven. Someone else is using their brain for me; I am a machine within a bigger machine. When I do get the chance to be with patients I do my best for them. I am not challenged I am bored! This is not what I trained for; I already had lots of experience as a care assistant.


University Challenge

Jabba does not smile, she moans at me to do her work while she sits there drinking coffee and eating crisps. I am now trying to make patients beds but there is no clean laundry. There are patients to go to theatre but there are no theatre gowns. Instead of making the beds with clean sheets we turn sheets around hiding food and blood stains and whatever else stains there are. I examined a couple of the mattresses and I was sickened to discover that they were dirty. These were beds awaiting patients. I also noticed the bed rails were disgustingly dirty. This whole ward was disgusting, it should be condemned. We are all taught very early on that we must use orange bags for clinical waste but there were no orange bags. I heard the ward was saving money. I watched as nurses and support workers tossed all sorts of disgusting waste into clear plastic bags instead of orange ones. Jabba kept dishing out the orders and I was her slave. Then out of the blue another nurse appeared she had been on some course and had come back into the ward. She looked at me, as I flicked through patients notes and said, ‘who are you?’ I informed her who I was and she abruptly told me that I should leave the nurses’ station because there was no room. She started asking me what I needed to know about the patients and then she told me about all her qualifications with a smug face. Talk about blowing your own trumpet. She then asked about my qualifications and before I even had the chance to answer she said, ‘yes you will know doubt just have a nursing qualification and no doubt be at the beginning.’ She had the manners of a pig. She looked like Miss Piggy too. In situations like this I never usually take up such a challenge because qualifications do not give someone better intelligence. On this occasion Miss Piggy needed brought back down to earth. I informed her of the qualifications I possessed and her face changed from one of smugness to one that looked like she had drank a full bottle of vinegar while sucking a lemon. I was a challenge because I had more qualifications than her. She started to ask me questions on nursing, just random questions. She was waiting on me tripping up but I didn’t. I had been through all this before with Nurse Ratchet and I decided to show her that I was actually more knowledgeable than she assumed. When she asked questions not only would I give the answer but I went on and on. She got annoyed with me and her Piggy face went from pink to red. She then told me to go and do something mundane and was on my case for the rest of the day. It was worth it though to bring her down a couple of pegs. I asked a care assistant if Jabba the Hutt got the vacancy she was after. The care assistant said she did not and that another nurse got it. There are nurses that are true gems out there as I stated previously and the nurse that got this job is a true gem, so I was pleased. It was lunch time and I helped to put out all the patients lunches. There was a patient there and she looked really dehydrated and I saw her jug of water had just been plonked down really far away from her, the water was warm. I would never drink it so I didn’t expect her too. She was not able to reach it and it would not have surprised me if she even knew it was there. I put down her lunch but she looked too weak to get her meal. I set her up so she could eat but she had very little ability, she was so frail. I started to help her eat and was told to stop by another nurse. ‘We do not have time to do that,’ she said. I asked if someone could take over and was told that everyone is busy. This annoys me, why bother having patients in hospital if they are unable to get a meal and lots to drink. It reminded me once when I was in A&E. I had not eaten or drank anything all day and got my first sip of water at 11pm. I was not on IV fluids either. I worked out that I had gone sixteen hours without water. I felt worse because I was dehydrated. It is basic common sense to supply fluids unless there is some reason not to. What is the point of pumping loads of drugs into patients if they also do not get basic nourishment? I was in this ward as a care assistant but I am a nurse. It is my duty of care to ensure patients are cared for, so I fed and watered this patient. The other nurse did not like it but why should the patient suffer. Oh dear I disobeyed orders again to care for a patient what punishment will I receive? I was sent off the ward to accompany patients to X-ray most of the day. I did not mind because I could have a laugh with Elias the porter and it was better than being shown how to do a bed bath all over again by Mrs F Flat.

Professionalise This!

I have come to the conclusion that nursing is not the profession that it promises to be. From around the middle of the nineteenth century the division of labour changed by establishing a grade of trained nurses. Trained nurses were placed between the doctors and the nurse domestics and they took on the work which had previously been carried out by apothecary surgeons. In 1916 the College of Nursing was formed. Although in contrast to doctors nursing achieved only small increases in autonomy and remuneration. Low pay is still the case today despite efforts to professionalise nursing with research and degrees. Nursing too is obviously made up of mostly women and nursing staff are the largest group employed within medical care making the likelihood of being given a salary anywhere near that of other medical professionals less than slim. Even in a previous study with nursing students they themselves divided nursing into ‘real nursing’ and ‘just basic nursing care.’ ‘Real nursing’ was viewed as that which used the knowledge of academia with which they were being trained for. ‘Just basic nursing’ was that which was done by auxiliaries and untrained staff. What appears to be happening is that the two types of nursing have become merged and hazy. Care assistants are being given more responsibilities while those that are educated to degree level are often being used as care assistants. The nurse is taught that she/he is accountable for all care and thus the job description of the nurse is actually very hazy. The nurse is expected to give all types of care which in theory sounds plausible but surely it is a waste of money training nurses to constantly be used as care assistants. A nurse can be used as a care assistant but a care assistant cannot be used as a nurse. Surely it is time to redefine the nurses’ job description. Student nurses do not go to study nursing degrees to become care assistants this is possibly why nurses leave the profession in their droves when they get the ‘just basic care’ parts all the time. They study to do the technical part of nursing.

Nursing Is Like Football, A Game Of Two Halves.

Now the other part which starts to emerge out of all this is that those with a degree can sometimes make those without them feel threatened. If a vacancy comes up, those with the qualifications are more likely to get it leaving those without, stuck in a job perhaps even burnt out. But because these older nurses have been there for so long they have perhaps came up through the ranks as an E grade, F Grade or even Sister. These people are in positions of power and rather than embrace and share knowledge with those that come in who are newer they are hanging on to their knowledge keeping it locked away. ‘It’s my football and you’re not playing’ syndrome. If we take away their knowledge which they have gained over the years what are they left with? So they retain their power by retaining their knowledge. Knowledge is power!Because they feel threatened they bully and use people like me as care assistants while they keep the knowledgeable ‘real nursing’ parts of the job for themselves. They are the ‘real nurses’ I am just a care assistant with a qualification in nursing.If the roles were clearly defined patients would be getting their basic care needs from care assistants including being fed if needed and encouraged to drink. Nurses could get on with what we are supposed to be doing. Demarcation of roles is required. I go back and forward to X-ray today and have lost count. Jabba the Hutt moaned at me but I guess she is sounding off because she did not get the job she went for. She did not get that job because someone came in with actual nursing qualifications coupled with experience and perhaps it shone through that she was a nursing gem. She will be Jabba’s boss; I can sleep well tonight knowing the patients are in safe hands. I throw my bag over my shoulder walking back along the corridor and past the dark doorway where patients are gathered smoking. I am beginning to see what is wrong with nursing but who will listen and pay attention? I go home to find a sealed brown envelope with my name on it. I tear it open to reveal a massive cheque. I had paid too much tax and Sister Poppins would not deal with it so I was on emergency tax for ages. I sat down thinking of all the nice things I could buy while the drudgery of today’s nursing gets pushed into a back drawer in my brains filing cabinet. Tomorrow is another day!

The Authoritarian Cogs (part 9)

The Future is Orange

It was great; I had the best few days off for weeks because I just did not dwell on work. One major change in me is that I have been taking active steps to protect myself from bullies at work. Over the last few days I have been asking other nurses if they are members of a union. It is so hard to believe that hardly any nurses are members. It is amazing though how many of them sit there complaining. They moan about their pay and conditions but they do nothing about it. No wonder our pay is so low if they will not do anything to help. It is as bad as citizens that do not vote in elections. They moan then say that they are not interested in politics. Pericles said

“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.”

Politics affects everyone! What is so frustrating is that women fought hard to get equal rights for other women to vote and take part in politics and these people can’t be bothered to vote. One of the lamest excuses for not voting I have heard is, ‘I need to go out and do some shopping for my night out’. That is of course from a nurse that wouldn’t speak to me; I am just on the bottom rung of the ladder, so I guess she is following the culture of bad nurses that do not speak to those beneath them. Anti-social I call it! The nurse comes back into the ward to show others of her own genre and of the higher ranks, what she had bought with her incredibly large nursing salary, after seeing the night out as more important than voting. She was so proud of herself buying foundation make up for her face but the bombshell was that it cost over fifty pounds.One of the nurses asked if she was already wearing the foundation on her face. She replied that she was. You know I am very good at composing myself when I should not be laughing but when something is that funny, it is terrible trying to not to laugh. I looked at the nurse’s face and although she was making every effort to try to look good while pretending she had a high salary to fund these expenditures, nature has a way of showing these types of people for who they are. She had not voted and made such an issue about not voting, so this was her punishment. For the crime of not voting you are to be sentenced to have an orange face. She looked like an Oomaph Loompah with her new makeup. She enjoyed having everyone around her while she showed off her big expenditures at the nurses’ station but if she had not bothered to come back to work to impress her colleagues, she may have taken more care on what colour of makeup she chose and she would have had time to vote.


There Is Cake On Your Curriculum Vitae

I arrive for my handover as usual this morning but I feel less like the little mouse. I had armed myself with union membership and believe it is money well spent. I go back to work feeling positive and no matter what they do to me now I take advice from my union. Although, I may still be a victim, I am a victim who is watching everything now and waiting on the right time to fight back. I sit and await handover while Sister Poppins, Mrs F Flat and Nurse Ratchet speak amongst themselves, they are the ward mafia. They eventually come through to handover to join the care assistant, student and myself. I can hardly believe it, I am to be a nurse today with a small group of patients. I want to shout from the rooftops ‘I am a nurse.’ During handover, the doors had been left open, so the patients could hear everything. The mafia of nurses were discussing the resuscitation status of a patient. Nurse Ratchet says, ‘she will definitely not be for resuscitation’. Imagine lying in hospital and you hear the nurses discussing whether or not you were a candidate for resuscitation! I had just hoped the patient did not hear. Nurse Ratchet had heard that there was a vacancy and she was doing her best to impress Sister Poppins. She would rearrange cupboards, make us all look incompetent and wait for it, buy cakes, just for Sister Poppins and F Flat. I passed by the nurses’ station to see Nurse Ratchet crawl up, leaving her slug trail all the way over to Sister Poppins and F Flat. She said she had bought these lovely cakes for the two of them. How blatant! I spoke to the care assistant and asked about this cake buying nonsense. The care assistant said that Ratchet had been doing this for a while. She never takes in cakes for anyone else but just these two. Yes, I am sure she deserves the job. Imagine that on you CV? Became a nurse and worked hard trying to impress managers through the buying cakes for them, to become an F Grade.

Fawlty Towers

Nurse Ratchet saw herself as the great nurse expert. One time I had to care for a patient with a serious wound which required a lot of wound packing. The patient had a wound chart and the tissue viability nurse had checked her out and came up with a plan for her wound dressings. There was a planned protocol for her. I began following this but Nurse Ratchet came through and told me to change the protocol. I insisted that the tissue viability nurse had given her this protocol and I would rather follow it. She scored out the protocol and changed it herself to the one she thought was best. I spoke personally with the tissue viability nurse and got it changed back. The reason Nurse Ratchet was doing this was to show she was capable of the F Grade post. Great F Grade she would make by increasing the length of wound healing, in patients. I worked with the care assistant most of the day. This care assistant was actually quite nice; he just wanted to do his job. He had no time for Sister Poppins and moaned about her. As a nurse there are certain things we do not discuss, it is like an unwritten law. We save patients from natural worry about the procedures that occur after death. While working with this care assistant we sadly had to comfort a patient who was dying. Before this patient became so ill he was quite a lively character and even a bit mischievous, we see all sorts but he was good fun. He would ring his buzzer to get a nurse through so he could tell a joke. His jokes were outdated but something about him made me smile when he told them. He reminded me of Frank Carson and had a cheeky grin. He did die and the difficulty when someone has died is sometimes sneaking the body away without upsetting other patients and relatives. In some hospitals it used to be customary to leave the body for a little while to allow the soul to come out but as the NHS does not have enough beds it is normal not to delay moving the body unless the family wishes to spend some time with the person. A nurse has not finished her duty until she has carried out the final act of care. The final act of care is to clean the body and wrap them in a sheet adding labels of who they are. When the sheet is wrapped across the face it always makes it very final, I always hate that bit. It is the nurses’ duty to treat the patients with the same respect and dignity they received while alive. Nevertheless, it is often a bit of a juggling act handing the body over to the porters to take to the morgue. This day when the patient died we had finished the final act of care and were awaiting the porters. It was lunch time now so it was not really a good idea for the porters to collect the body. By the time the porter arrived there were visitors in and typically staff were also still on lunch breaks. The care assistant was also on lunch and so was Mrs F Flat. Sister Poppins was hiding in her office. I had quite a few patients to keep an eye on. Anyway, the porter arrives and he waits halfway down the corridor with his trolley, remaining discreet. I go into the bay and as usual close all the patients curtains but beside one bed is a female relative. I say that I hope she doesn’t mind but I am just closing the curtains for a minute. She could not have been more inquisitive, she was asking why they were to be closed and she would prefer to sit outside the curtains. My job was to keep her in the curtains but she was having none of it. I heard a sudden shout, from the bay next door and go over to ask the porter if he doesn’t mind waiting until I see what is going on. A doctor is on the floor next to a patient who had decided to get up out of bed but had fallen over. Meanwhile, at the same time, the inquisitive relative is asking what is going on and is pacing up and down the corridor. I help the doctor get the patient back to bed with the aid of a hoist and go back through to see the porter still waiting. I go back through to the other bay to see that other patients have now opened their curtains. So I ask the inquisitive relative if just for two minutes she would sit by the bed of her father so I can close her curtains. I then re-close the others. I inform them that I just need to move some patients. The inquisitive relative finally co-operates and sits down. Finally, we get the body out the ward without causing upset. This is not Fawlty Towers it is the NHS.

Join the Nursing Army

Afterwards, the bed is cleaned and made ready for another patient. I carry on with my nursing duties then I hear the buzzer and as usual go to see who it is. I go into the bay to see the buzzer light on in the empty bed where the patient had recently died. Who could have pressed the buzzer as it was now fixed to the wall and all the other patients were sleeping? Mrs F Flat wants to see me so I go through. She informs me in her flat monotone voice, while staring at me with her cold eyes, that tomorrow she will show me the correct way to do a bed bath. I can’t wait to receive my enlightenment about where I must be going wrong. Mary Poppins has watched me all day but has not spoken a word. She never says, hello or good morning, to me despite the fact that I always let on to her. Nursing is like being in the army. The Sister was my sergeant; our colours on our shoulders are our rank. The system is authoritarian and Sister Poppins has an authoritarian personality, concerned with conservative attitudes, submission to and preoccupation with authority, fatalistic and rigid thinking and hostility to humanistic values. Here is a news flash, this is not the army and we are supposed to be human caring people. This type of working structure is outdated and this is why bullying exists. We always hear about working cultures and that we can’t change them overnight. If managers moved away from this authoritarian style to the facilitator role and actively involved their staff perhaps the low morale and demotivated staff culture currently experienced in our wards would lessen, making way for staff that could show better productivity. Why waste time intimidating staff and using petty policies to prove who carries the authority in the ward. It is far more time consuming for a staff member to intimidate me showing me how to do something that I can already do and have been doing for years. Why not show me something new, something I am supposed to know as a nurse. Let me do my job that I am supposed to be trained to do? I finish this shift but have become the philosopher on how to change this rotten system. I look at Sister Poppins and Mrs F Flat as just cogs in a big machine. Their cogs are old and need remodelled. I go out the ward making my way for home deep in thought and pass a couple of newly qualified nurses on the way out. They both look flustered as they go in for their night shift. I ask how they are enjoying nursing. They both moan, it is not what they expected and it is so different to what they thought it would be. No surprise, I have heard this a lot. I wonder how long they will hang in there as I hurry over to my rain soaked car. I need to get some shopping, so I guess I will not get home to nearer ten tonight. I turn on my engine, switch on my lights and wipers and drive off.

From a Mouse To A Swan (part 8)

I am awaiting handover on my ward. The nurse in charge comes to me saying that I need to go to another ward. This is no surprise and in fact I am getting used to it. I arrive into another ward where I have never worked. I will be working with a female nurse who will be in charge once the Sister goes home. Sister is still in her office finishing some work. I sit in on handover and to be honest I am quite unsure what capacity I am here as. Nurse or care assistant? I am informed in handover that there have been many new patients been admitted today and all the paperwork has not been done. I state that I could help out but as soon as I state this I am told abruptly that because I am not from this ward I will not know the paperwork. I get a feeling I will be a care assistant. I should be a nurse not a care assistant. Although, I was asked to be here as a care assistant I am quickly used as just an extra pair of hands. Whatever role. I quickly got on and started dispensing drugs and taking observations. Then I helped get everyone settled for the night. I was fairly exhausted quickly. The heat in the ward was unbelievable. I felt dehydrated really quickly. My mouth became dry and I could barely talk as my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. The heat was outrageous! I started to get a headache and looked for a water dispenser. There was nothing to drink! The kitchen was a good bit away. I went in to the changing room to get my bottle of water out my bag and took a big long drink.


There is No Water in the Sahara Desert, it is a Mirage.

It felt like I had walked across the Sahara desert. I felt the life force come back to me as I took a drink from my strawberry flavoured water. I decided to take my water out on to the battle front with me as there was no water dispenser and the heat would no doubt make me thirsty again. I wrote my name on the bottle and placed it in a corner on the nurses’ station. I then heard a voice from the male care assistant who sounded very rough round the edges. His voice was enough to cut down a rainforest. He said ‘Oi can’t leave that there.’ I turned around to see this little guy who behaved like he was my boss. He said ‘we don’t put water bottles on the desk’. I mentioned that I am thirsty and it is too hot to work. He told me that I will need to go to the kitchen, changing rooms or wait until break. I thought a moment about responding and then thought that I do not want to upset the wards rotten apple cart so I went back to put the water back in my bag. I took another drink before putting it back. I carried on working and it was not long before I was thirsty again. I tried to ignore it. The ward was really busy and there was a very ill patient who the doctors were huddled around while discussing their plans for him. They asked me if I was looking after the patient. I said I was tonight. They pleaded with me to ensure I get him eating something, such as jelly or custard, they said they have already spoken to ward staff about this and nothing has been done about it. The patient had a rare condition and if he didn’t eat anything before tomorrow they were planning on taking the patient to ICU. Due to the condition of the patient he could not have a nasogastric feed, which is a tube that is passed down the nasal passages into the stomach. The doctors were quite clear about their decision and they looked a little annoyed. The outlook for the patient was really not great and the patient had lost a lot of weight. I continued with all my work and it was very busy. I had checked this patients oxygen levels and noted that his levels were actually good. I spoke to the doctors to ask if it was worth trying a period without the oxygen as this may be drying up the patients’ mouth and it may encourage the patient to eat and drink. The patient could not have nasal cannulae, which are the little tubes for oxygen to go up the nose; this was also due to the patient’s condition. Instead the patient had a big oxygen mask and he kept pushing it off anyway. The doctors were consultants from ICU and asked me to try him off the oxygen for a few hours to see how he gets on. I kept checking and he was fine.


Smeagol Will Show You the Way

The care assistant came through and actually shouted at me, saying, ‘we have all had strict instructions to keep this oxygen mask on, you need to put it back?’ I stated that I had spoken to the doctors and they asked me to try him without it. He said, but you don’t know the patients, I have been here for years and I have been told to keep you right’. I couldn’t not be bothered with his manner, he reminded me of Smeagol from Lord of the Rings, so I just walked away dealing with the patients. I picked up some custard from the fridge and took it back to the patient who I had to get eating. I managed to get the patient to eat a few spoonfuls to begin with and I said to the patient that he really needs to eat. I said that I knew it was painful but it will get easier. The patient ate most of the custard but he was obviously in some pain. I went out a bay and had forgotten some notes and walked back into another bay. I could hear the care assistant and the nurse behind the curtains with a patient. They must have thought I was not there. They were discussing how lazy I was; they stated my name and the ward I was from. I thought, ‘did I really hear right?’ I almost spoke the words out loud. I sneaked back in and yes, they were talking about me, he mentioned also how I tried to leave my water on the desk and that I had taken the oxygen mask off when it should be left on. They were as loud as trumpets and as bold as brass.


Intelligent Science Is Not All Rockets

I had not seen much of the nurse but she appeared with a big sized bumble bee in her bonnet. She said that maybe I should help her with her paperwork. I looked through their paperwork and noticed there were quite a few sheets I would not know about. I filled in what I could but there was a lot missed out. I told the nurse I filled out what I could. She started getting angry saying, ‘it is not rocket science.’ You know that phrase, ‘it is not rocket science?’ Well it must be one of my most hated phrases. Nurses use it all the time. Whoever came up with this phrase should be sent away to live alone on a desert island with only boxes of salt and vinegar crisps to survive on to dry up their mouth from stupid phrases. Some of these phrases enter our language by the back door and suddenly everyone thinks it is cool to use them. Just like ‘24/7’, people used it in their droves and now they were using, ‘it is not rocket science’ in an attempt to make others feel less than intelligent, while they stand there smug with folded arms. Here is some news; it is not rocket science to use this phrase. Some of the best scientists of all time were never quite ‘rocket scientists.’ Aristotle’s natural science research includes botany, zoology, physics, chemistry and meteorology, geometry as well as others. Sir Isaac Newton was a physicist, astronomer and philosopher. Galileo was also viewed as the father of science. It is not rocket science to go along with the bleating sheep mentality to use a phrase that everyone is using. The fact is I did not know this paperwork and I admitted that I did not know it because this ward was not my speciality and face it; there was paperwork here there for the sake of paperwork. Talk about complete overlap of information. Who has time to come up with these hair brained ideas? Yes you guessed it, managers! They sit in their office saying, ‘I am bored let me design some more paperwork for the nurses and it will make me look like I am doing my job. I may even get promotion.’ Rubbish, put it in the bin and get out there to help the nurses actually care for the patients! Another thing, these ward cultures come from none other than managers. Managers decide that nurses must become dehydrated because they are not allowed to place a stupid water bottle on a desk. Where are the managers at 8pm after we have done a twelve and a half hour shift? It is also managers that decide how many nurses are required for a ward despite the fact that wards are utterly understaffed. It is us to blame when we do not have enough arms to care for all our patients at the same time. It is us they come to when they wish to find petty faults in our work while they stand there making out they are so perfect. Is it then the managers that have created this bullying culture that seems to be acceptable all over nursing?


Did You Hear Me NHS? It’s Called Bullying!!!!

I go from ward to ward to see a repeat of this behaviour again and again. This is no coincidence that I have just landed in bad wards. I must add, it may be normal to them but I can categorically state that this behaviour is called bullying. What will they do if I take my secret camera in and film it? Who knows maybe I will do just that. Anyway, I carry on with my shift and now start being task driven by the nurse and her sidekick care assistant as though I have no brain. One way to undermine you is to ask in the sugary coated little voice, ‘are you new?’ I have been asked this over and over again by female nurses who should have ‘I am evil' tattooed on their forehead. Their nasty demeanour says it all when their fake personality drops and they moan about their colleagues and patients in front of everyone. Nice people! Women are often in the caring field but this does not automatically make them a caring person, in fact Florence Nightingale once said

“Women have no sympathy and my experience of women is as large as Europe”.

I end up with so many tasks that I can hardly keep up. The buzzers also ring and I answer these too. The nurse is not nice to me after listening to little Smeagol. The nurse turns into wormtongue. I now turn into Théoden and feel weakened. I must also look pale. I am so exhausted and I feel dehydrated. I go into the treatment room and hold on to the worktop as I go dizzy and almost faint. I feel sick! A doctor who is in there asks if I am alright. I tell her I will be in a minute. She said I looked very dehydrated and I should get some water. I go back to the changing room and take my water bottle out and empty the contents. I fill it up again from the water in the kitchen and go back to the desk with it and place it back in the corner. I need to drink; it is as simple as that. I place it in a corner well out of sight and carry on with my work. Twenty minutes later I discover the bottle in the bin. I ask who put my water in the bin. I was told that the policy in the ward is that any water bottles found on the desk are to be put in the bin. They were carrying out their orders. No wonder patients are neglected when wards concern themselves with petty nonsense,

“He who by profession has become a slave of trivial details is the victim of
bureaucracy.”

Gramsci, Antonio.


Who’s Bad?

My night is busy without doubt and made more difficult by constant sniping remarks. I choose not to answer back but find myself getting annoyed. The doctors come around to see the ill patient and she is not to go to ICU just yet. I feel pleased for her. Fifteen minutes prior to the end of my terrible shift I am beckoned by Wormtongue, while Smeagol, stands around smirking and looking on, obviously in on what is about to be said to me. I go into the Sisters office, but this is no Sister I am standing in this room with. She asks again how long I have been trained but she already knows. She also knows that I have lots of other qualifications and experience because we have already discussed this. She has given herself a promotion while Sister is at home in bed. She goes on saying that my practice is terrible. I admit inside my head that it would be better if I could be given some actual nurse experience instead of constantly being used as a care assistant and undermined all the time. As a student nurse, I was given the task of care assistant, porter, tea maker and receptionist. Very rarely a nurse! I would ask nurses, ‘can I do that for experience?’ I would either be ignored or told to do something else. I eventually got my book signed but with the very minimum input from other nurses. What incentives did nurses have to help students anyway? Being a nursing student is a very fine balancing act on a very thin line. If I did not do what the nurses asked, my book would not be signed. As a bottom rung band 5 nurse, Agenda for Change does not recognise all my skills, I am a uniform doing the job, not a human being with skills and qualities. I could also do without sniping comments and have some positive feedback for a change. Positive feedback is not around in the NHS. When the positive feedback courses were handed out, the NHS were not around because they were too busy in meetings handing over the public’s hospitals to private companies. Nurses on the bottom rung of this two rung ladder are constantly told how bad we are, so perhaps it is a self fulfilling prophecy. I must be bad!


I Am A Swan!

Wormtongue was grinding me down. Inside me the pressure was building, just like the balloon that has been blown up too much and is in danger of popping, I too thought I would pop. It was time to let out some air before I did and it appeared from nowhere. Like the lioness who snaps at the hand of anyone touching her cubs, it was very quick and I surprised myself. I said, ‘how dare you condemn my practice and if you have any complaints then you need to get your boss to speak to mine.’ I told her that I was not perfect but I worked very hard while feeling ill with dehydration. I asked if this was the end of my shift and she replied that it was. I turned around and snapped, ‘GOOD’. I saw her face look startled and I walked out the door, leaving her standing there motionless, like someone had just poured quick drying cement on her. I saw Smeagol standing rubbing his slimy little hands, awaiting the outcome. I smiled a grin but not at him, I was going home, I was free once more. I had several days off and I was going to live life to the full. No more dwelling on this, no more little timid mouse, I was changing into a swan. I have many mores steep mountains to climb. I walk out feeling like a soldier going to battle on the bullies. For once, I feel, confident, I feel like me.
I turn my music up in the car. I listen to a song called Into a Swan
What in the world is happening?
What in the world could this be?
I'm on the verge of an awakening
A new kind of strength for me
I feel a force I've never felt before
I don't want to fight it anymore
Feelings so strong can't be ignored
I burst out - I'm transformed
Rising up, shaking it off
The yesterday dreary
Graceful and strong, No more forlorn
Today's a jubilee
Don't be surprised
This change is my design
I feel a force I've never felt before
I don’t want to fight it anymore
Feelings so strong can't be ignored
I burst out - I'm transformed
I feel a force I've never felt before
I can't hold it down I've just got to soar
And laugh in the face that is vulture law
I burst out, I'm transformed
I feel a force I've never felt before
I don't want to fight it anymore
Feelings so strong can't be ignored
I burst out - I'm transformed
I feel a force I've never felt before
I can't hold it down I've just got to soar
And laugh in the face that is vulture law
I burst out - I'm transformed
I burst right out - Into a swan
I burst out into a swan
by Siouxsie