An open letter to the One Show:-
Abi Fuller-GardenerThe One Show
Dear Presenters of the One Show. Until you have been spat at, beaten, Called all the names under the sun (yes, including the C word) had coffee thrown at you (just boiled) hit around the head with a walking stick, told to F Off, and threatened to be murdered (all in one shift, by the same patient) and still found time to care for the Terminal patient, the confused patient, the Breathless patient, the cardiology patient and the liver failure patient, as well as find the compassion to give the spitter/verbal abuser/thrower of coffee a hug when he was crying, I don't think it is appropriate for you to criticise Nurses for lack of care. We try our hardest everyday to care for those who need it, even those who treat us like something they stepped in. The Nurse : Patient ratio is increasing, not for the better. I'm not looking for a medal, none of us are, but I don't think that bashing us without knowing what we actually do is unfair. Please can you do a report nurses who do care. The ones that don't spend Christmas with their families, who can hold their bladder for 22 hours (like I can......) who have "Lunch" at 5:50pm, despite starting their shift at 07:30, who old hands of ladies who have fallen over and are too scared to ring the buzzer when they need a wee, because they see the nurses running around like headless chickens, and they don't want to bother us. Or the old man who as just found out that he has mere weeks to live and he's scared.
Do you know what my favourite part of my shift is? Washing patients. The ones who are unable to wash themselves and hearing the audible sigh of relief they give you as you splash some warm water on their face, or their back.
I'm not saying that there aren't bad nurses out there, and I'm equally saddened and angry over the poor care given to the patients at Mid Staffs, but Please don't tar us all with the same brush. We don't go into the job for the money, and certainly not the Glamour (pee on your shoes, pens falling into bedpans, vomit all over your clothes and the smells.... I know of at least three different smells of diarrhoea) but to look after people. To care. To make a difference. That is why I'm a Nurse. And I'm proud to be one.
Abi Fuller-GardenerThe One Show
Dear Presenters of the One Show. Until you have been spat at, beaten, Called all the names under the sun (yes, including the C word) had coffee thrown at you (just boiled) hit around the head with a walking stick, told to F Off, and threatened to be murdered (all in one shift, by the same patient) and still found time to care for the Terminal patient, the confused patient, the Breathless patient, the cardiology patient and the liver failure patient, as well as find the compassion to give the spitter/verbal abuser/thrower of coffee a hug when he was crying, I don't think it is appropriate for you to criticise Nurses for lack of care. We try our hardest everyday to care for those who need it, even those who treat us like something they stepped in. The Nurse : Patient ratio is increasing, not for the better. I'm not looking for a medal, none of us are, but I don't think that bashing us without knowing what we actually do is unfair. Please can you do a report nurses who do care. The ones that don't spend Christmas with their families, who can hold their bladder for 22 hours (like I can......) who have "Lunch" at 5:50pm, despite starting their shift at 07:30, who old hands of ladies who have fallen over and are too scared to ring the buzzer when they need a wee, because they see the nurses running around like headless chickens, and they don't want to bother us. Or the old man who as just found out that he has mere weeks to live and he's scared.
Do you know what my favourite part of my shift is? Washing patients. The ones who are unable to wash themselves and hearing the audible sigh of relief they give you as you splash some warm water on their face, or their back.
I'm not saying that there aren't bad nurses out there, and I'm equally saddened and angry over the poor care given to the patients at Mid Staffs, but Please don't tar us all with the same brush. We don't go into the job for the money, and certainly not the Glamour (pee on your shoes, pens falling into bedpans, vomit all over your clothes and the smells.... I know of at least three different smells of diarrhoea) but to look after people. To care. To make a difference. That is why I'm a Nurse. And I'm proud to be one.
