nurses and the medical system

[muses_nightmare]

Is there a problem with having nurses who know what they are doing? Who actually respond to patient calls and not just shut off the call button and not help the patient.

Is it a problem having nurses and hospital staff who can communicate with their patients? English doesn't have to be your first language, but at least be able to speak it and understand it.

It pisses me off that nurses get their student loans forgiven (either partially or in full, I can't remember which) while other medical professions get nothing. My boyfriend just finished the Medical Radiography program, he has $30000 in student loans to pay off. What does he get from the government? Nothing. Yet the nurses bitch about not being paid enough, the work they have to do, etc. My boyfriend has ended up doing some of their jobs because they refused to.

He's now in the hospital being treated (if you could call it that) for colitis and the other night he pressed his call button, it dinged for a bit, then one of the nurses shut it off and never came. This isn't because he was bothering them all the time, in fact it may have been the first time he rang his call button.

It also seems like every question he asks of them they can't answer, and don't even remotely try to answer. It's fine if you don't know about whatever medication or test, but it is part of your job to answer patients questions or to find a doctor or other staff member who can. The vast majority of the nurses I've seen haven't even tried.

As a disclaimer I know not all nurses are like this. Just most of the ones I have come into contact with.

[MaggieTheCat]

Man, the entire ER staff at the hospital back in my hometown treated me so poorly the one time I ended up there, that I told the ER director flat out I would have a relative drive me to another ER 50 minutes away before going back to the local ER unless I was in immediate danger of dying. So, I know what you mean. I hope your boyfriend gets better ASAP and gets out of there.

[protege]

My mother has been a nurse for over 30 years. In fact, she's actually a supervisor with the county health department. She would actually agree with many points that the OP made.

There are some in the field that simply don't care about their job. Quite a few people either went into the job without thinking what they were getting into. Some went into it because of the job perks and/or salary. These people seem to be rather bitter about things. Many seem to think that they're entitled (there's that word again) to high pay for dealing with shit--both figuratively and literally.

There are some, who are fucking morons. They don't know what the hell they're doing, but as long as they don't screw up too badly, they don't get fired.

Of course, not all of the blame goes on the nurses. Quite a bit can get dumped on the county authority. My mother's boss is an asshole. He's more concerned about making himself look good...than he is about his employees.

[muses_nightmare]

I've seen some fantastic nurses, but they seem to be few and far between. The nurses in BC seem to constantly complain about what they have to do. I actually like what Alberta did: The nurses were complaining about doing other departments jobs, so the government gave the jobs to the people who are "supposed" to be doing them, leaving only about 2 nursing jobs or something along those lines. (There's more to this I'm sure, and it may have just been in a few places, I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's a good way to handle things).

Our health system in general is not the best. It can be, there are some awesome healthcare professionals out there, but there are a lot on the other end of the spectrum.

He's doing a lot better now thankfully, itching to get out of there, since it's been nearly two weeks.

[Greenday]

I've had different experiences. Whenever I've personally been to the ER, I always got immediate attention. Never had problems with them, thank God.

Now, whenever my grandfather was in the hospital, he always seemed to have trouble. It one time took him SIX hours to get a room at the hospital from the ER, SIX damn hours, just because some nurses were fighting over who had to clean the room. Are you shitting me? How can you waste SIX hours over that? They would practically never answer the call button. And my grandfather was always jovial, never complained even to us, but we knew when something was wrong. They'd never answer his questions. He had been in the hospital so many times most of the doctors knew him by name. There were times where he'd be asking the nurses for hours if he could talk to a doctor about a problem and they'd say the doctor was busy. Finally my grandmother would track down the doctor watching my grandfather and the doctor would say he/she hasn't been busy all day and the nurses never even contacted him/her.

It amazes me. I have a lot of friends in nursing and they are all great people, very friendly, and I know would never treat patients like this. And I know my friends can't be the only ones. But seriously, where the hell do they all end up?

[Lace Neil Singer]

I've mostly had good treatment from the NHS; cept for the time when I'd been knocked off my bike and was in Casualty with a suspected fractured skull... only to wait four fucking hours to be seen. -.- Could have been even longer, cept my mother (who works as a district nurse and is in fact a Sister; she often has to tell off or report lazy arses who aren't pulling their fingers out and actually doing their jobs) turned up and gave them a blasting, then they saw me and finally gave me a sodding x-ray. -.-