Nurses

[jackthehat]

I’m not being sarcastic and I’m not wishing to denigrate, but what do nurses actually do ?

Whilst I was in hospital, the nurses;
Took my blood pressure,
Took my temperature,
Changed my surgical stockings,
Changed my Saline drip,
Changed my bedding,
Administered injections,
Dealt with ‘bed-pan’ issues.
I had my medication given to me by specific, possibly senior, nurses.
I had my water-jug and meals brought to me by what appeared to be auxiliary staff or nurses.
Cleaning was by agency staff.

I was supremely grateful to each and every one of them for their kindness and care but it did set me thinking that I often hear about the hours of study, etc. that nurses are obliged to undertake.
However, none of the above activities seem to warrant such ‘study’; with a couple of hours instruction even I could become reasonably competent to perform them.

When it became apparent that there was a problem, the nurses were only able to alert a Doctor who then alerted a Surgeon who then alerted MY Surgeon. There was nothing ‘clinically’ that they could do without authority.

Would the wage-bill to the NHS be reduced if we were to revert back to the model of 50’s/60’s/70’s where nurses were enthusiastic and caring but essentially ‘non-medically trained’ ?

I’m sure that there is a bigger picture I am failing to see..............?

[boxtops]

^^ sorry, meant to endorse woofgang's post not Rowan's. fingers faster than brain today.

[ummmm]

Sqad...my Grandad doesn't want me changing his nappy. To him, that's humiliating.

[Sqad]

ummmm....fine.....then in Spain a nurse would do it.

[ummmm]

He pays a nurse to do it....

Unless he has an accident which needs sorting (he had bowel cancer) then he reluctantly lets (not me, I'd be sick) us do it...

[mike11111]

I think job titles may have something to do with this. Last year I was unfortunate enough to succumb to acute pancreatitis which was not diagnosed until, after a refusal from my GP to have me admitted to hospital, I took myself, on the advice of the consultant's secretary, into Casualty, being literally at death's door. Although I was not in need of the intimate care which has been mentioned earlier, all the professional medical care, for which I am most grateful, came from very junior doctors and nurses who were labelled auxiliary. They were not auxiliaries in the sense that I understand the word, as they had obviously been medically trained. One young lady was given the thankless task of inserting a catheter into my private parts, having to remove it two days later. She did it with aplomb and grace, caused me no pain whatsoever, and smiled throughout (not sure whether she was smiling at me or just having a laugh at the pathetic thing she was handling). I have grown old with dignity, but for a brief moment last year i wanted to be 40 years younger. The Staff Nurses and Sisters were seen only when following around at shift changeover time; God forbid they should get their hands dirty with a real live patient.

[woofgang]

Going to take issue with scylax over a few trivia.
That effective tripartite totally ignored and devalued the contribution of Ot's, Physios and other clinical staff who were neither nurses nor doctors...and following their example so did most of the nurses and doctors.
setting clear care objectives and documenting success or otherwise in achieving them keeps the patient's care moving forward and stops the situation I used to know well....wards full of old folk stuck in hospital because it was felt that they ought to be able to be got better but nobody quite knew how.
....and quite a few of that proliferation of managers were nurses!!!

[woofgang]

thought I had better come back and add that i have great respect for most nurses as individuals.

[mollykins]

Unless they've done it elsewhere, nurses aren't trained first aiders either. Even though they're dealing with people after they've been ill, they are the most likely section of society to have a problem that requires a first aider IMO.

[craft1948]

So nursing doesn't appeal to you Molly?

[woofgang]

interesting Molls....registered nurses are (or were) REQUIRED to stop and offer assistance at accidents regardless of whether they are on duty or not. Failure to do so can result in their registration being removed.

[Scylax]

Woofgang, I agree with you ++

In the late 60s. nurses were forced into the 'management mode' by being required to take first line, middle, then top management courses in order to gain promotion. Many welcomed the change of role that ensued, and abandoned their vocation at the bedside for the heady heights of administration. Woe betide them- it was a slippery slope.

Re: OTs. and Physios.,magical work was done by these professionals, but a lot of their work could, and should, have been done by nurses who had by this time disappeared from clinical view. Since Physios. and OTs. did not provide a 24 hour service, all essential exercising, ambulation, resocialising and rehabilitation came to an end at 5p.m. weekdays, and throughout the weekends. No-one was available to care.

Even SENs ( State Enrolled Nurses) had given up the ghost and cried:'non nursing duties', and followed the SRNs into relegation and obscurity.

A grim picture, but a cadre of untrained but willing people emerged to become the real carers. I refer to Nursing Auxilliaries . They do their best, but they too are hogtied by bureauocracy and litigation threats. The story continues to this day.

[lcg]

i disagree with everybody and their scant regard for nursing a nd the 'skills' we are expected to posess. as you may well know, i'm a psychiatric nurse (one of the useless ones in many of your opinions i guess). but the lady i stpped to help after a traffic accident didn't think so. i used my inglorious cpr skills to keep her alive until an ambulance came 11 minutes later...helped only half way through by a student nurse in her early twenties. needless to say the lady in question was very badly injured...and very grateful to say the least. and the best part? you lot are the first people (apart from mr kicker, of course!) that i have told. only to say that not all nurses don't give a sh!t...x

[jackthehat]

I think rather than trying to imply that nurses don't give a flying f**k, we've all commented that nurses seem to have moved or been moved away from 'nursing' as most people would like to understand it.

There have been many comments about the respect in which they are held. And as I said at the start, I am referring to 'general' nurses, not ones who have been specifically trained for specific departments.

[lcg]

also - when i'm at work i don't get to sit down that often, do unpaid overtime almost each shift and do paid overtime too. this is so i can pay my bills, go to university, support my son and husband (who's also gone back to uni after being made redundant). i'm stuck in an expensive rented house and will never be able to afford my own, unlike many of you. yet i do it because i love my job, like my life and should be paid far more for the work i do. i am a nurse prescriber, teacher, team leader and project manager at the moment (so my nhs trust get almost 4 jobs for the price of one). not bad, i'd say...

[boxtops]

woofgang, I remember great reticence amongst some of my nursing colleagues in a hypothetical situation that they were called to give emergency aid at the scene of an accident - not that they couldn't offer first aid, but in case their registration didn't cover them if something went wrong and the patient sued them. Life has changed a great deal.

[woofgang]

Scylax, i spent much of my career teaching nurses how to help people to walk, move be hoisted and so on :-(

[netibiza]

Just have to interject here, Sqad, here in ibiza the nurses do all that, and not the patient's family, and very kind they are too. I am talking Insalud and not private.

[woofgang]

I think that family doing personal care is only a model which works when there are plenty of family, they live close by and aren't all in full time employment :-(