Mad Mel and the killer Zombie Nurses

[Gromit]

Feminism has turned our Florence Nightingales into evil uncaring women who want to be men, according to this inspired column by Melanie Phillips.

http://www.dailymail....urses-grand-care.html

Agree?

[daffy654]

I've met some hideous and uncaring nurses in recent years, one was outright cruel to me when taking an arterial blood gas after I replied I didn't remember him when he asked if he'd met me before.

[ummmm]

I have also met some very uncaring nurses. I often sat with various poorly family members and wondered how patients without large families cope.

Unless you make a fuss....nothing is done.

[Frank97]

I have also come across some awfull nurses, I know two of them one is only interested in taking drugs and drinking when she's not at work the other I wouldn't trust to look after my dog let alone my mother. I'd like to think they are in the minority but I'm not so sure they are.

[DrFilth]

gromit mayby they don't want to be classed as florence nightingales

http://www.dailymail....xually-repressed.html

[starone]

This is many years ago and too late to make any difference. My mother spent the last three years of her life in hospital. She was unable to move or speak properly. Her mind was still active because she was able to say to me on one occasion "I'm bored" - so she was poor thing when they left her sat in a wheelchair by herself while the rest - including the nurses - were at the other end of the ward watching television. Just before she died they let her fall - they tried to tell me she fell from the toilet. There were many safeguards against that so I didn' believe them. I didn't say anything at the time because - let's face it - I didn't have the nerve. She broke the arm that wasn't paralyzed so was unable to feed herself. I did not realise what was going on - naive and stupid as well - but I believe she literally starved to death and the only food she had was when I was there to feed her. She had also hit her face when she fell and had a huge bruise. She eventually had another stroke and died. I had been planning on giving a large donation to the hospital, specifically that ward, but I felt so bad about it that they didn't even get a thankyou. Looks as if things have not changed much.

[DrFilth]

Starbuckone it is still happening today but people will not believe it till they see it with their own eyes

[ummmm]

My Uncle was in hospital for about 4 months. Don't know the medical terms but he had infectious arthritis in his hip and shoulders. This meant he couldn't move his arms. They'd put his food in front of him and leave him to it. Even after us having a word with the nursing staff it continued. So, between me and my sister, we covered all meal times. The nurses hated us....

I had nurses say that it's not visiting times....to which I use to say that if they did their jobs I wouldn't have to be here.

[Frank97]

Have we reached a situation where people are no longer scared of having an operation but are more scared of the way they will be treated while they are in hospital?

[joko]

To most, nursing is just a job like any other, not many see it as a vocation. They are underappreciated an underpaid an I guess like any job, lose morale and the will to do their best... An just do the bare minimum. Sad but I know a few who think like that

[daffy654]

Nurses are not really underpaid (just short of £14k pa at entry level I believe), they do suffer from understaffing on many wards though.

[ummmm]

I was always amazed at how much time they could spend chatting at the nurses station though...

[Gromit]

And it is all the fault of feminism, right?

[EvianBaby]

During a recent hospital stay I had all the nurses appeared to care and be doing their best but it was totally clear they simply didn't have enough time to keep on top of everything which led to some of my meds being missed.

On the day I was allowed to leave, after 10 hours of sitting in a family room waiting for my pills to take home, my other half went to the nurses station (for about the 10th time) to find the head nurse sobbing because she couldn't cope.

[China Doll]

Nothing to do with feminism, some nurses are just terrible at their jobs.

I was lucky on my stay in hospital, I had some very nice nurses. Hospital is a horrible place to be at night when you're alone and not able to move so well by yourself, I would have probably balled my eyes out had I had horrible nurses to deal with in the middle of the night.

[daffy654]

I agree ummmm, I fail to see the point of ward managers as well. Bring back matrons!
I could tell you some horror stories about my hospital stays but i'd be here all day. lol

[daffy654]

Sorry Gromit, to answer your question, this has nothing whatsoever to do with feminism.

[cassa333]

I agree with the article.

The basics of care and caring have all but gone.

Doctors are overworked so reliy on nurses. The nurses in turn do more of the doctors work so bedpans, cleaning and feeding is beneath them.

They are taught how to change a bandage for less time than how to fill out the forms needed to fit them.

As for costs well, in the begining they seperated the nursing from cleaning as the imigrant/low paid cleaner was cheaper than the nurse. Then it was cheaper to get an imigrnant/low paid care wroker than a nures to 'care' for the patient. I honestly believe that if you took away all the different layers of jobs/people and went back to basics you would find it is cheaper and because the nursing staff were more hands on recoverywould be faster and better.

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

Your headline 'Mad Mel and the Killer Zombie Nurses' is nothing more than sensationalising a very serious issue that many patients and their families are now facing, you of all people who is forever slagging off the Daily Mail for doing likewise, should at least know better.

/// For during the Eighties, nursing underwent a revolution. Under the influence of feminist thinking, its leaders decided that ‘caring’ was demeaning because it meant that nurses — who were overwhelmingly women — were treated like skivvies by doctors, who were mostly men.///
Maybe Melanie Phillips is not alone in her thinking

/// Dame Joan Bakewell, the former government-appointed Voice of Older People, has suggested nurses be given ‘empathy training’.///

Also /// in an important book on the nursing profession, Ann Bradshaw, a specialist in palliative care, described how this agenda removed caring, kindness, compassion and dedication from nurse training.///

/// Student nurses now studied sociology, politics, psychology, microbiology and management, and were assessed for their communication, management and analytical skills. ‘Specific clinical nursing skills were not mentioned,’ she wrote.///

[sp1814]

Gromit

Melanie Philips has a strange relationship with feminists.

She can be safely ignored on this subject.

[rowanwitch]

Why do you think I was driven to quit.... no time to care...too much paperwork at the expense of patient work to much emphasis on extending roles to support the junior doctors. and too few staff or having to work with agency staff who may be good nurses but don't know the ward, the patients or often the speciality