Another fine example: Overworked nurses leave the bedside.

Their managers love it because they can replace them with untrained staff. I am still working on my letter to "Dignity Revolution" and I will print it here soon. Kids, dogs, work, and decorating the house are keeping me on my toes.

I found this short little article. It's American but it could have been written about an NHS nurse. Roll on the day when our journos do some real articles about nursing.


http://detnews.com/specialreports/2001/nursing/sunlead/sunlead.htm

Stressed nurses quit, hurting patient care
Poor pay, conditions leave hospitals strapped for help

Emily Minard, 23, graduated from the University of Michigan School of Nursing in April 2000. She got a job at a hospital but quickly burned out, overwhelmed by the chaotic environment. She now works in home health care.By Sarah A. Webster / The Detroit News

DETROIT — Kelly Stimac says that if she had been allowed to do the job properly, she would still be working as a nurse.
But what she once saw as a dream career became a nightmare. Every day became a race with too little time to treat too many patients.
One day still haunts her. Stimac struggled to give one patient blood, while another began having a heart attack and yet another strained to breathe on a respirator.
“It was just impossible,” said Stimac, who now reviews medical records for a Berkley law firm. “You couldn’t take care of people as needed. Staffing was terrible. I would come home and cry for hours.”

I bet that the relatives lined up to complain about the fact that their family members didn't get their teeth brushed properly while this poor nurse was in the middle of this situation. I bet they also slammed her as some miserable bitch who felt that basic care was beneath her. Fucktwits...............Anne

Her solution was painful but simple: she quit.

She is not alone. Thousands of other nurses are abandoning the once highly regarded profession.
The exodus is aggravating a nationwide shortage of nurses and compromising patient care in many health care facilities nationwide.

and in the UK...........Anne

Many nurses openly say they are demoralized. They complain of low pay, long hours, large patient loads and being treated condescendingly. In the era of managed care, they say hospital administrators are putting profits over people — both workers and patients.


Hospitals are struggling to keep nurses at the bedside and find new recruits. But services are quietly being reduced or restructured for lack of workers. Many nurses who remain on the job say they are being pushed to do more than ever — more than is safe.

And the relatives and patients way of dealing with this is to call the nurses lazy and uncaring for not being able to treat each patient as if they are the only one on the ward. Their solution is to give the nurses "dignity cards" and fire nurses. I'll refer to that as "The fucktwit solution"....................................Anne

“Quality is impacted,” said Ada Sue Hinshaw, dean of the University of Michigan School of Nursing. “When the ratio of nurses drops below a certain level, more people die, there are more errors. I think patients need to know what they are walking into.”