kurtz

Picture this 2200 late shift. Phone call from A & E (or ER if you are in the USA) "We have an admission for you" A& E is not supposed to admit to general wards after 2130 (they usually go to the "holding ward" until morning, so we knew this must be a doozy. A & E - "She is mobile, continent, orientated and alert, she has a lower leg wound that the registrar wants a dermatologist to look at ASAP" Me - "Why isn't she going to the holding ward?" A & E - "There isn't any room" Me - "OK send her up, we'll cope" So we start to get ready for this admission, put the water jug next to the bed in a six bed bay and all the rest of it when we smell this most disgusting smell! We start to wander around the ward and this smell is getting stronger and stronger. Then we look up and here is a wardsman coming down the hallway with an obese woman in a wheelchair with an enormous number of bluies tied around both legs. He has a mask on but still looks a little worse for wear. We realise this woman can't be put in a 6 bed bay and have to rearrange beds to get her into a single room. We do this eventually and I get to take the admission as I was the fool to take this patient at this time anyway. I remove the blanket from around her shoulders and the corners of the blanket stay stiff it was that dirty. I ask her why she has come to hospital. She says; "Coz of my legs" Me; Ok what's wrong with them?" She says; "They're sore" Me: "Do you treat them with anything?" She says; "When they get bad I give them a spray" Me; "What with?" She says; "Mortein or something" At this stage there is a foul smelling semi opaque serous-looking fluid oozing from under the bluies and I know that what I am going to find there is not going to be pretty. I take the bluies off and the skin underneath is undulating! She had an entire ecosystem living there!! It was horrendous, like something out of a horror movie! Eventually the derm diagnosed this disease with a long name that excapes me that made her lower legs have skin like a crocodile, it would split occasionally and that is when the bugs would get in. This disease was primarily caused by simple poor hygiene it seems. Anyway the treatment was to put her in a warm bath and exfoliate her legs. I won't gross you out with those details. Needless to say she wasn't called the Cornflakes lady for nothing! To top it all off this woman was discharged eventually because of her innappropriate sexual behaviour. She would moan and call us darling when we massaged her lower legs with moisturiser to soften the skin. She would touch us innapropriately and smirk at us. An all round disgusting person! We were glad to see the last of her!

I hear what you are saying. Perhaps as an adminstrator you have allowed enough staff to staff your ward. Although that would seem unlikely as you relieve the staff so that they can take breaks. This seems to indicate that you go without your breaks so that your staff can. This does not seem fair either. You son is a nursing assistant as such he does not do the work required of a fully qualified nurse on his ward. He only does a small part of it. I can remember during my training thinking, "what are they all whining about?, it doesn't seem that busy to me". Little did I know how much work these people were doing while my back was turned. I think you are wrong. Sure I am at the other side of the world (in Australia) but it seems to me that things are the same here as they are in America. Very bad.

Listen "Client" I was hungry and could not feed myself. But I could not take my breaks because you only complain to me, never to the people in authority, then you discussed the demise of my profession with your friends. I was thirsty and helpless, but you forgot to ask the people in authority to get more staff so that I could get a drink. You later wrote a letter of complaint about me instead of staffing shortages, because I was "lazy" in your eyes. I was in financial difficulties but you didn't care because "nursing is a calling" so why should I get paid enough to support my family? I was the problem in your eyes. You did not bother to take the time to see the problem of "big business health care".. I hurt my back lifting you and thought I was never going to be able to work again, thinking I could not hear, you said you hoped I wound up in the same ward because you would like to see me suffer the treatment you had, had. You never thought I might be distressed, not just by my own pain but yours as well. You seem so well educated, well spoken, and lovely in your new pyjamas. But when you see me, you seem to think I only have you to care for, that there are not seven other patients under my care just like you. You seem so ill, and lacking in dignity. But when I speak, you abuse me with vigour. I smile and take it and go home late to a family who cannot understand. You worry about me getting you to the toilet in time, but I am yet to change my incontinence pad that I have to wear because of the years that I have worked without time to use the toilet. You worry that you may be dying, you think I should have time to hold your hand, so do I. But what do you do? You blame me for my not being able to do my job the way I (and you) would like. Help me, help yourself. Care about the staffing levels in this hospital. I am so tired, so lonely. Talk to them - reach out to them - take their hands and drag them into the wards to see what is happening here. Let what happens to you matter to you and complain to the right people. Not me. You become angry with me because sometimes I can be heard laughing at the nurses desk. But I was only laughing because I had been insulted (yet again) by one of the medical staff. If I didn't laugh I would cry. I would cry buckets. I loved my job. I wanted to do it because I care. I really do. I love to hold those frail hands and talk to my patients I have done it for years now. But with your unseeing eyes you say I am callous and too busy with my own life to care about you. You could not be more wrong. I am sick of the abuse. Abuse from you, abuse from the medical and other staff, abuse from the faceless people in authority. I will go and work at K-Mart where I get paid the same amount and have less stress. And you? You will complain to your friends about how "nurses aren't what they used to be". Please, "client", listen and look, and sit up and THINK!!!!!