Nurse bashing by UK public AGAIN

allnurses Guide · Mar 1, 2008

I stopped reading after a little while. It all get quite depressing. Maybe I would be a bit happier if I started to drink heavily became promiscuous and sat at the nurses station all day.

Not sure where the nurses station is mind as I rarely have chance to sit anywhere

Billy Shears · Mar 1, 2008

Agreed SC.

I can only say how much it means to me when a pt thanks me & colleagues out loud when they know the consensus of the general public's opinion is so low. It's enough to make you think you are in the wrong country!

LiverpoolJane · Mar 1, 2008

I agree the article is shocking and only goes to add to the low opinion it seems Joe Public has of nurses in general. However much as it grieves me to say, what he writes about his experience may have a thread of truth. I have heard nurses carrying on conversations on a ward as if the patients are invisable. Thankfully nothing as shocking as what was mentioned in this article and I have needed to remind more junior members of staff not to carry on conversations that exclude the patient.

As someone who done the old fashioned nurse training we were subjected to many "patient experiences" including sitting on a commode while two people carried on a conversation over my head. This gave me insight into how vunerable this can make a patient feel and I have never forgotten it.

I think he is wrong to broadcast his bad experience as I am sure whatever the real truth it probably involved a couple of immature individuals who need some readjustment - not branding the nursing profession in such a bad light.

cariad · Mar 2, 2008

this is a guy who has had a bad experience, but he seems able to air his views in public, then why could he not have addressed the situation at the time in the hospital where he was kidnapped from?

i obviously do not agree with his derogatory remarks, but do know of uk nurses who fit the description, and some over here who come to work to socialise and look like they have just come from america's next top model, with beautiful long hair, and some others who look like they just fell out of bed.

ayla2004, ASN, RN · Mar 2, 2008

Reading the article and similar comments is sobering.

of note my current ward has patient experiences str comments good and bad and the hospital patient survey thread was people wanting to be treated as an individual not a number.

Fonenurse · Mar 2, 2008

Its easy to target a faceless group in public in this way instead of addressing concerns via a complaints system at the time. Were these people nurses or health care assistants? What was his motive for doing this?

Whilst I do know of people whose care is less than perfect in this respect, I would sday they are in a minority. However I also feel the nursing profession is a little at fault - we are not very good at singing of our own successes or professional achievements - and so with only the bad press, what are the public to think?

We need to counter this rubbish with some positive articles, and not just as a one off - but on a regular basis!

RGN1 · Mar 2, 2008

Trouble is that if he heard such conversations going on between nurses then he was bound to feel like he did.

It's unnacceptable to talk over patients like that on any topic - let alone something personal!

scattycarrot, BSN, RN · Mar 2, 2008

It does frustrate me that there is a minority (I hope its a minority) of nurses who do fit the negative impresion that the public have. Its such a shame that these are the nurses that people remember and taint the image of nurses in general. There are lazy nurses out there and I have worked with a few! I worked in A&E, when last in the UK, and we used to transfer patients to the ward and some nurses would not even get off their behinds to come and help transfer the patients and/or introduce themselves. Now, there were some aweome nurses who always would. I am not making this an 'us and them' issue but rather saying that, unfortantly, some of the comments made by the public are true. And, its the lazy nurses that people remember. I would love to know what the solution is. Mostly nurses do an amazing job, under impossible circumstances and I just find it so sad that all this good work is ruined but some bad apples. Why do we tolerate such bad behaviour? Are we that short of nurses that we really need to be keeping those who don't give a rats a** about their fellow workers and patients? Again, I think it comes back down to ineffectual management and the fact that alot of clinical nurse managers are never on the floor. So, whose running the show? No-one and thats when people get away with bad attitides and bad practice.

Ok, I will climb down of my soapbox.....I could keep going but I won't!!!

GeneralDogsbody · Mar 2, 2008

I've had carers who speak over patients !It makes me sooo mad!No matter how many times you tell them not to (they don't do it when they are with me)I hear them when they are in rooms talking about everything under the sun and not talking to their patient.Worse still are the non-english speaking ones who talk in their own language while attending to someone.I can't think of anything worse to a confused person than to wake up and hear speach that they just don't understand!

StNeotser, ASN, RN · Mar 3, 2008

I notice nurses have become lazier, dirtier, and chat at the nurses station more than ever since the Labour party went in and buggered up the NHS.

cariad · Mar 3, 2008

well i have been a nurse for a while and have certainly not become lazier or dirtier because of the labour party ! what do politics have to do with the actions and behaviour of a nurse?