Ensuring that we have Compassionate nurses.

We need compassion in nursing. We need our patients to receive wonderful and dignified treatment.

But forcing ward nurses to take a ridiculously high number of patients, working 8-14 hours without a break in addition to massive amounts of unpaid time in a vain attempt to avoid being struck off hardens people. They become numb. Some nurses are just crap. Most are working themselves into an early grave trying to do their job well. The bad ones and the good ones are both working in insane conditions. Let's improve the conditions and weed out the crap.

This country is collectively mentally ill. We give nurses outrageous numbers of patients and expect one to one care. If she can't do it we call her lazy and uncaring. Sick sick sick.

If you want the nurse to be there every single time your loved one is wet, in pain, or needing his medications then you want one to one care. You don't want your nurse to have any other patients. This is not something he/she can control. Yet you say nothing when the wards are intentionally short staffed. You bitch about sloppy nursing care but want the nurse to take on insane numbers of patients in order to save you some money. You don't care if she works a 14 hour day with nothing to eat and that only allows for the bare minimum to get done. You complain about her and close your eyes to the situation.

If my grandma goes into hospital and I find out that her nurse has more than 4 other patients the shit hits the fan. I will tear into the boss. I want my grandma cared for. Stopping her nurse from seeing her other patients by complaining and harassing and stalking her over something she cannot control only makes things worse for all of them, including my grandma. If grandma's nurse has a bleeder in the next bay then no she can't take my grandma to the toilet right now, or for a long time. I can abuse this nurse to death but it won't change the situation. If I bully the nurse into putting my grandma's toileting needs first then the bleeder dies because he didn't get what the doctor ordered.

Daily mail readers and Dr. Crippen think that the overwrought nurses will be so much nicer if society ensures that they are poorly educated and chased around by an old fashioned matron carrying a stick to beat them with when they crash and burn. Uh yeah, problem solved.

Read this article. This is how you begin to get good, compassionate nurses who respect dignity.

You should treat them with dignity and you should not abuse them day after day.

You should admit that their job is tougher than most others rather than subscribing to old fashioned and incorrect views of nursing that lead you to believe that a moron with a good heart would make a wonderful nurse. Have you any idea of just how much an RN needs to know to be a safe nurse?

You should respect them and help them to cope. I don't think for a minute that listening to soothing music and doing push ups is going to improve things all that much. The point here is that someone is actually recognising that poor conditions for nurses means poor conditions for patients and they are trying to do something about it.

Would you beat a dog every day and then leave them alone with a child? No? But you want to treat nurses like shit, working in overwhelming 3rd world conditions where they have to go 8 or 12 hours without eating, work unpaid hours to boot and then you expect them to be compassionate and stay at the bedside?

Anyway I'll quote some of the article here. Edit :no I won't now because blockquotes are evil. Just click on the links.

http://www.nursinglink.com/news/articles/5731-hospitals-creating-programs-for-nurses-to-combat-compassion-fatigue

http://allnurses.com/nursing-news/hospitals-creating-programs-338202.html