Posted on 10/18/2008 3:58:31 PM PDT by B-Chan
I knew my mother Norma's 81st birthday would be poignant. She had been diagnosed with lung cancer six months earlier... and was not expected to survive the year.
But at least, I reasoned, she was being treated at the world-renowned Royal Marsden Hospital in West London. There she would not only receive the best possible treatment but be cared for by dedicated nurses accustomed to looking after the terminally ill...
But when I arrived on Horder Ward on the morning of my mother's birthday, she was distressed and disorientated. Instead of wearing the white linen pyjamas she had gone to bed in, she was wrapped in an NHS gown Gradually it emerged that she had woken up in the middle of the night in a pool of blood, terrified she was haemorrhaging. She had rung the bell next to her bed but there was no response.
Eventually a nurse turned up to discover my mother's cannula - a tube inserted into her vein and attached to a saline drip - had fallen out of her arm.
The nurse bustled around changing the sheets while my mother sat covered in blood, shivering beside the bed. When she asked for a blanket, the nurse told her to put on her flimsy cotton dressing gown, an offer she declined as she didn't want it covered in blood.
Finally she was dressed in a hospital gown, put back into bed and left alone until I arrived in the morning. 'Where are her pyjamas?' I asked the nurse. 'I don't know,' she shrugged.
[ ... ]
We're all familiar with the problems facing the NHS: the chronic shortage of nurses, the drain on funding, target-orientated managers, government edicts...
But there's one question that cannot so easily be dismissed: when did hospital nurses stop caring?
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Sure it is. Government has no authority to demand that I pay for your health care, there is no right to government provided healthcare.
Look where this attitude has led the USA, now we have presidential candidates trying to out-promise each other on covering bad mortgages. The benefit to me? I was told that the house next door won't be vacant.
Socialism is evil.
No, hospitals are the factories of the new millennium. Doctors offices and free standing clinics are factories. You are not the product, the procedure is.
There are not as many four year BSN nurses as there used to be. Many nurses today are one year LVN’s or have a two year associate’s degree. A BSN nurse is worth his/her weight in gold.
You have got to be joking.
The two and three year degree nurses out do the BSNs on most every front at local hosptials. Hard workers usually who put themselves through school.
And I have my masters.
> Sure it is. Government has no authority to demand that I pay for your health care, there is no right to government provided healthcare.
I agree: in America you are right. That is because socialized medicine is not a “National Priority”. Your voters have not required that it should be. The government therefore does not have the right to provide healthcare on the same basis as it provides, say, socialized national defense.
A country would be extraordinarily careful when it decides what services it is going to have its government provide. Here in New Zealand, the Postal Service is provided on a competitive basis: it is not a government monopoly as it is in the United States. Postal Services are not a National Priority here.
That said, the Government’s postal offerings are by far and away the best: all mail arrives overnight, 100% reliable delivery, and sometimes it even arrives the same day. The privatized mail services suck AND they are expensive...
> Socialism is evil
Yes, Socialism as a political doctrine is evil. However, socialized medicine is not necessarily Socialism.
That's none of your damned business. Maybe B-Chan's grandmother needed medical care beyond his family's ability to provide. Maybe B-Chan's family all has to work to provide their daily sustenance.
Regardless, he is entitled to not be questioned by some sanctimonious internet poster about his family's decisions.
I’m not a mate.
Not if he posted it on a public forum, he isn't.
L
> I’m not a mate.
Clearly not. Watch your language anyway.
Most of the ones I talk to have BSNs or higher. One has a Ph.D., and has left the profession completely.
And many of the ones with higher degrees got out of direct patient care and are doing the kind of work you do or similar to it.
Diana you are right, as usual. In the past, several generations lived on the same property, took care of each other when needed.
Rapunzel you will be blessed for your efforts.
Grammy is a blessed one, the rock of her family.
My Mom is 82, and I look after her now, although she is healthy enough to live alone. I do worry about the coming winter, as she fell last winter, and experiences terrible pain with arthritus. I want her to move here where I live (10 miles from town — and she, unlike me, HATES the country).I have a separate apartment on my property, and have offered to expand it for her to live in. She refuses, although I feel this winter we will come to a showdown and I’ll win.
I also have an aunt (you know the one Grammy) I am very worried about. I have a feeling I will be taking care of her soon (I think it’s the right thing to do, and I’ll do the right thing as long as I am physically able). I planned my life (and work) so I am in the position to do this for my Mom.
I just pray God will give me the strength for this. My brothers are no help, so I’ll be doing this alone.
God will bless all those who take care of the old and weak. I know it is not always possible, and I would hate to face the prospect of placing a parent or any loved one in a nursing home.
When did all of them ever care?
While the ideal of the selfless dedicated nurse or doctor may be ingrained in the public's mind the way the ideal of the selfless caring teacher is the truth is that all of these professions have so many exceptions that they should not be considered the rule.
And they never should have been.
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
“In every bureaucratic system, the shifting of responsibilities is a matter of daily routine, and if one wishes to define bureaucracy in terms of political science, that is as a form of government - the rule of office as contrasted to the rule of men of one man or of the few, or of the many - bureaucracy unhappily is the rule of nobody and for this reason is for this reason perhaps the least human and most cruel form of rulership”.
- Hannh Arendt (Re: Eichmann and his role in the holocaust) -
First, I'm so sorry about your gram - no one deserves that type of horror. But you're right. It's not uncommon. I was visiting a loved one in the hospital last April - in intensive care and saw an old black woman being treated horribly. She had tried to get out of bed - and an aid started yelling at her - cussing at this fragile woman. I walked out of the room I was visiting and the aid glared at me and pulled the curtains closed. Normally that would bring out the protector in me - but it was the middle of the night and I was exhausted. I also feared repercussions for my loved one. And I didn't hear anything like hitting. And after a while she pulled back the curtains and left.
Still, I was a coward that night. And this was one of our better hospitals - and the person I was visiting had excellent insurance. But that didn't matter. Daytime care was good - it was the night care that was inconsistent. He was treated badly too. But not as badly as the woman. When I'm ready, I'll complain.
But back to your situation... I'm not a person who likes to sue people - but in your situation you should consider it. Also, consider writing a letter to the governor of your state. You might ask, why start so high - I'll tell you how the system works. When a person complains of abuse, where the information comes from makes a difference. If you call the nursing home and complain, most liking nothing will happen. If you call your State Aging Services they'll give your complaint to someone to investigate. But if you go thorough the governor's office - his staff will send the complaint to the exact same place but it'll be treated differently. Because they have to answer to the governors office and explain how the case was resolved.
My heart goes out to you... I wish there was something I could do to undo the damage and pain. I'm sorry you ran into an evil person. Nursing homes do seem to hire their full share of thuggy people. Somehow, it should cost them dearly to hire these kinds of people. Sueing them might help bring that about.
Indeed.
So sorry to hear these horrible stories. There are still nurses who care!
No, I am not joking. BSN’s also put themselves through school and work hard and end up with a better education.
No, I am not joking. BSN’s also put themselves through school and work hard and end up with a better education.
I work with both. All hardworking. BSNs are not as well prepared. The two year kids are well prepared and are better suited to the factory-hospital.
When did all of them ever care?
Care is a slippery world.
Some people think it means that there is an emotional involvement and connection. “You care about me!”
In the healthcare world it means procedures and monitoring.
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