The role of Nurses poll

[dickythecook]

I cannot vote in this poll. It is like being asked if you would like your teeth pulled without anasthetic or just a little bit. The nurses who looked after me during my last stay in hospital were all brimful of compassion and fully trained in my treatment. So I am voting option C. Both compassion and knowledge

[Baldric]

3 yrs ago, I spent 8 wks as an inpatient at St Thomas' (great view of Big Ben) and the Nurses could not have been better, couldn't fault them at all, treatment and compassion all there, no probs.
That was followed up by 10 days in a local Hospital, QEQM, what a difference, compassion was a rare if not non-existant quality, and below the level of Sister Treatment was grudgingly delivered so long as they didn't have to put their chips down, or that's the way it felt as a patient.

[LoftyLottie]

Unfortunately such discrepancies can take place even within the same hospital. My husband's care in the Cardiac Unit couldn't be faulted. The care my mother got in the Elderly Persons Unit was attrocious. The nurses just couldn't care less and they were not overworked. I virtually stayed with my mother night and day until her death and what I saw over that period was appalling.

[wendilla]

You are right there about the care homes Loftie I have done relief work for agency's. and found things I did not like but there are still the majority of excellent care homes .

[LoftyLottie]

It wasn't a care home Wendilla. It was the unit for the elderly in the hospital and an excellent hospital at that.

Don't talk to me about care homes!! Fortunately, there are some really good ones, but there are dreadful ones too.

[wendilla]

Yes I realised that after I read through again Loftie.

[woofgang]

I voted compassion. You could train anyone of average intelligence to do the treatments. Compassion considers the individual person and how they are responding and reacting.

[wendilla]

Getting away from the post a bit but one home I went too for agency the girl on that night said we do the rounds on the death ward which was downstairs then she said" You can HAVE THE CHOICE OF FIRST COUPLE OF HOURS SLEEP OR LATER COUPLE OF HOURS" I asked her if she would like to lie wet all night so I can assure you I made her work that night and put in a report.

[McMouse]

We sat and watched MIL die in hospital last September. We were there all day every day for two weeks, and the care she received from ward staff was great. However there were other patients in the ward repeatedly pressing their call buttons and getting no response. Nurses routinely walked past their beds and ignored their calls for assistance.

[anneasquith]

i agree re the poll. but i find it ridiculous that health care providers are being lessons on how to be compassionate and show dignity to patients ! why would they be in the profession in the first place if they dont possess these skill ?

[Hopkirk]

I too cannot vote in this poll.

The question is too simplistic, and voting suggests I agree you would accept one without the other.

[LoftyLottie]

I agree Anne. If you have to be taught to be compassionate then you are not compassionate and never will be.

[AB Editor]

All these comments could have appeared nicely here: http://www.theanswerb.../Question1110903.html

Not sure why a new post was needed?

The poll was designed to be divisive, and to encourage discussions like this.

[LoftyLottie]

If you look on the thread which is attached to the poll you will see that there are many comments on this too. You simply can't vote for one or the other. Treatment should be delivered with compassion, full stop!!

[LoftyLottie]

Ed. I only realised that there was a thread on another pole when you told me how to get into it. i.e. vote and then return to question. Perhaps people on here are in the same boat?

[rowanwitch]

somethingthat may need to be taken into account is the confused patient who has to have access to the call bell but presses it constantly.. it may be that the nurses have a system of stopping at the bedspace at intervals but ignoring it the rest of the time otherwise the care of the rest of the patients on the ward would suffer. We also had experience of patients who if they saw a patient recieving any form of attention would call a nurse to their bedspace with an 'urgent problem' and could get very aggressive in their demands for attention accusing nurses of all sorts. to a visitor it could seem like deliberate neglect on the part of the nurses so it is not always quite as it appears on the surface

[LoftyLottie]

Rowan, as a visitor who was constantly at my mothers side, this is not what I saw. The nurses were quite honestly, for the most part, quite lazy. Funnily enough the nurses that were caring and compassionate were the immigrants.

[anneasquith]

a fair point rowan, but in the majority of cases, patients pull the bell cord for a valid reason. as a patient recently in a NHS hospital i was appalled at the standard of basic nursing care, unfortunately being a nurse for some its just not like casualty and holby city !

[AB Editor]

Just so everyone knows: you don't have to vote to comment.

You can click the title of the poll on the homepage to get to the question itself. But yes, you may be right about some members not having worked out how to "get at it" to actually make a comment.

[jno]

"The poll was designed to be divisive"

well, no wonder you get rioting in the streets around AB Towers and the building reduced to matchsticks...

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