Sairy Gamp slur--victimisation

World International

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I feel driven to make a post on All Nurses, mainly to off load, hopefully for advice.--even a bit of sympathy woudl be nice! I am now retired but I was dismissed on sick grounds "stress" ( following a collapse ) because a patient's relative had written a highly vindictive and I might say completley nonseniical letter about a visit I did with a Nursing assisitant colleague overnight two years ago. She said we looked untidy and tired--it was a windy morming and we had just done 9 hours nonstop and then went on with a long list of things we didnt do--(the patient was sleeping peacfully, (after checking her and discussing options with this very hostile and un-communcative family) thankfully the patient did not die or I think i would have been arrested as Nurse Shipman! To cut a long story short I was made to go on days for "support and mentorhip" though I had been senior nurse on nights for 6 years, but when I got on days I was left to my own devises despite all the calumny about my uncaring incapability and untidiness--the sister at the practise where I went--bearing in mind I was supposed to be the local Sairy Gamp--knew nothing of my dreadful reputation and wrote that I was an excellent member of their team, which if I say it myself, I have always had high standards and given my heart and soul to my job. I am deeply distressed at the case which ahs been made against me, which, after two years of battling on my own with no useful input from the RCN . It seems my NA colleague had a further interview and seems to have struck a deal, and was afterwards said not to be my partner in crime after all, she was left on nights!

I am truly shattered, though I suppose in the scheme of things its not in the Amanda Jenkinsin league, but goes to show a frighteneing lack of support for practioners --in fact I was told "I hadnt a leg to stand on" because the complaint was about a terminally ill patient. I am a member of Julie FaGAN'S CAUSE which has been highly supportive, but it seems as a profession we are terribly at risk from allegations which can destroy your life and career. Thank goodness I am retired, or to be specific, dismissed from a profession I once loved but now would not advise anyone to get involved with.

greensister

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Specializes in Cardiac Care, ICU.

You definitely have my sympathy for being unfairly accused and helpless to defend yourself. Same kind of thing happens on this side of the pond as well. I had a coworker who irritated a supervisor and they looked until they could find something to threaten his licence with and then gave him the option of resigning or getting turned in to the board of nursing. He didn't want to take a chance with his licence so he left. And it was amazing the people who crawled out of the woodwork to tell mgmt bad things about him (he was the kind of opinionated and sl. arrogant kind that tend to get under peoples 's skin). Anyway, he landed on his feet and will probably be able to buy this hosp. someday!:yeahthat:

P.S. excuse me for being a "dumb yank" but what is a nurse shipman and a Sairy Gamp?

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Thanks Fronkey--I am really at the end of my tether--that is Yorkshire for wits end, wits end--self explanatory!

Sairy Gamp is the drunken night nurse in Charles Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit. She is a name used among nurses for the portrayal of soemoe who has been accused of being a bad nurse. She went out to work with a brolly (umbrella) and bottle of gin!

Nurse Shipman is a recent colloquialism, named ofter Dr Harold Shipman who a few years ago was had up for bumping off his patients by injecting them with diamorphine. He was a mass murderer--lived just down the valley. So if any of our patients died after we had given them an injection( the terminally ill of course) soemtimes happens, we woudl "feel" like Nurse Shipman. Black humour really.

It really terrifies that all this wretched woman was making a to-do about ws I didnt bed-bath her mother--who didnt need it at 6.30 am when she was alseep, if I had done so and woken her up, got her agitated and then given her some sedationa nd she had died, well I gues I would be behind bars by now as the local Nurse Shipman!

Nice to hear from you anyway!

Greensister

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

sorry that you have had to go through this, seeing it more and more although the gp surgery I worked at in Bradford was very supportive on their nurses which was nice.

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Hi Silve Dragon--I used to work in Bradford (UK) as a midwife--I won a prize as well and ws presented to JB Priestley. This is a terrible way to end my career--though I have't run out of fight yet!

What did Shakespeare say---

He who steals my purse steals nothing

He who steals my good name makes me poor indeed.

I have very happy memories of Bradford--St Lukes. I had very happy memories of my district nursing career until this "dickipoggy" (another Yorkshire word--started up. It is scary to know that people can to this to their own kind--not that all managers are nurses of course, thats probabaly the trouble! But I honestly am appalled at the lies and spin that have been spun in this web --with em the poor little fly trapped in the middle!

greensister

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Specializes in NICU, Infection Control.

Try to read about "bullying" or "mobbing" in the workplace--it will help you work thru this. You can search this site, Amazon, or Google and get lots of info.

Here is one book: http://www.amazon.com/New-Perspectives-Bullying-Ken-Rigby/dp/185302872X/ref=sr_1_4/104-6934537-2333532?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182624337&sr=8-4

Best wishes...

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Thanks Prmens--hope thats right! I will do so. For the ake of all nurses this situation that "we havent a leg to stand on" if a terminally ill patients carers complains about us--for whatever reason, we know they are in stress--I have been there myself--but that is why innocnet nurses end up behind bars.

I am setting up a website and blog next week--with a little help from a friend as I am a bit hopeless at these new-fangled things, ! :lol2: so will keep you all posted,

greensister

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Specializes in midwifery, gen surgical, community.

Am thinking of you greensister, and hope you can work things out. Do you not think now, thanks to the present government, that patients and rels have all the rights, but no responsibilities, and we as nurses have all the responsibilities but no rights?:(

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Thanks Cheshire Cat

You are quite right, and all nurses are at risk from this kind of victimisation and nonsence . This has gone on for 2 years with me not getting any sense or support but I found out plenty when I said I would take it to Tribunal--but in the end I couldnt as the legal costs stopped me, by then I had got the dodgy dossier and the kanagaroo court they intended to set up against me,--all of which i could easily explain but may have not been evident or obvious to members of the jury. Howver--I wasnt too worried, I wish I could have got it into court, as if they had won their case and proved me a "Sairy Gamp" then the woman who made all the nasty comments in the first place could have sued the Trust for allowing a Sairy Gamp to be let loose on the unsuspecting patients of ******** where I had been a distirct nuirse for the past 20 years!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also this support I was supposed to need never happened, I was still roaming round being Sairy Gamp on days-----it has further complications and rubbish in theri attempts to justify their victimisation, but i wont go into that---yet!!!!!!

greensister aka Sairy Gamp 2007

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Specializes in Cardiac Care, ICU.
Thanks Fronkey--I am really at the end of my tether--that is Yorkshire for wits end, wits end--self explanatory!

Sairy Gamp is the drunken night nurse in Charles Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit. She is a name used among nurses for the portrayal of soemoe who has been accused of being a bad nurse. She went out to work with a brolly (umbrella) and bottle of gin!

Nurse Shipman is a recent colloquialism, named ofter Dr Harold Shipman who a few years ago was had up for bumping off his patients by injecting them with diamorphine. He was a mass murderer--lived just down the valley. So if any of our patients died after we had given them an injection( the terminally ill of course) soemtimes happens, we woudl "feel" like Nurse Shipman. Black humour really.

It really terrifies that all this wretched woman was making a to-do about ws I didnt bed-bath her mother--who didnt need it at 6.30 am when she was alseep, if I had done so and woken her up, got her agitated and then given her some sedationa nd she had died, well I gues I would be behind bars by now as the local Nurse Shipman!

Nice to hear from you anyway!

Greensister

Greensister, thanks for the info, obviously I need to read some more Dickens :mad:. It is pretty asounding that someone would try to ruin your career over a bath, though I am not sure why I am so surprised. If England is anything like America, there is such an entitlist attitude that it probably seemed reasonable to that woman that you should be fired for not doing "your job". Most Americans think "someone else" is suposed to do everything for them. I get people in the hosp. all the time that will call me away from another pt to give their fam. member a drink of water (water pitcher at bedside) and pts who will call me down to pull up their blanket. Unbelievable.

When I do mission trips to other countries I am always impressed w/ how much responsibility other cultures take for their health and their family members. They actually do what you instruct them to do, even the uncomfortable parts. they will provide comfort measures for their families like baths and skin care and turning that westerners demand nurses do. But you know, the one thing that always gets me is the appreciation they show me in other countries for doing something as simple as a bandage. In the States people not only don't appreciate the bandage but they are likely to complain if it isn't as neat as they think it should be!:trout:

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Thanks Fronkey

I guess it is human nature for people's worst to be brought out it some situations and their best in others. On the whole my patients in the community were a pretty decent lot and did allsorts for their relatives in and among our visits, but you got the odd awkward customer who expected a "magic wand".

Ill write more on the proper reply but, this is quik reply--just seen!

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Contunued!

Because I stood up for myself over the Sairy Gamp allegation management did not like it. I knew the family wanted a doctor really to take their relative off their hands and send her into hospitla then they would not have to admit they could not cope( its complicated--better say no more than that) As I refuted the Sairy Gamp allegations and had another legit reason for my actions, I wasnt "playing the game". I should have repented,apoligised and said I had "leant"!!!!!!!!

Because I pursued this, having retired on sick grounds as a result--I was ready to retire anyway---- I didnt care what I said then, my job wasnt at stake, so I managed to get my hands on all the documnets--talk about sleaze and dodgy dossier. An incident about my CAR!!!!!!!!being untidy in 1996 was brought into the arena, my appearance--after 9 hours driving round all night on a windy morning, and another situation from two years previoulsy which was soemthing and nothing and which they literally tacked onto the recent one to "prove" I was a Sairy Gamp. In the end I had to send a solicitors letter to the woman who had complianed in the first place, believe me, it is written in a way she cannot accuse me of harrassment, but I feel I had to have personal closure--in fact this board is part of the "therapy"--I was going to set up a blog etc but think I will leave it now. If Mrs X dont like my very nice letter--I wish I could show it to you--then she will have to sue the Trust for allowing Siary Gamps to roam around unchecked--then they will have to prove otherwise--but I felt that it was my right to have a say in all this, which so far has not been the case. I also found out that my auxiliary from that morning had repented" and ";learned" and basically sold me down the river so that she was allowed to go her way unmolested!

unbelievable but I am pleased I have found it all out, it was worth the aggro! I hope other people who might have similar issues may take heart from knowing you dony have to agree with your managers who half the time dont even know you, if they tell you what a ****************** you are !:uhoh3::biggringi:monkeydance:

greensister

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