Why I don’t want to go back…

{ January 29, 2010 @ 2:29 pm } · { Uncategorized }
{ Tags: Everyday life, kids, Nursing }

A few years ago the parent of a patient I cared for were talking… and I hate to harp on the subject of how unfair nurses and other healthcare professionals are treated, but it is just something I can really understand… anyway… we were talking about how I believe that healthcare professionals are portrayed unfairly in the media, as a general rule.  There were recent headlines about a nurse who abused a child in their care, and while that is not excusable, when is the last time you ever read a story about a nurse who risked their life to stabilize a dangerous mental patient so other residents and staff members wouldn’t be injured… I actually had a friend, Claude, who did this… A patient at a place we worked at (although I did not work here during the time period this happened) somehow got hold of a sharp kitchen knife and was threatening the administrator of the facility with it.  Now the administrator of this facility, I know, most likely had no idea at all how to handle this situation, and from what I heard, Claude stepped in, and after about thirty tense minutes, convinced the woman to give up the knife.  The workers are very limited on what they can do to a patient, even a crazy one, and he could not have touched her or wrested the knife away from her without being subject to liability… but he used words and saved the day.  Was this in any newspaper?  I doubt it.  In fact, a few years later, by the time I began working there the administrator was treating Claude like an idiot again.  I guess it is easy to forget that someone saved your life.  Claude has since passed away; he put a gun to his head.  Now Claude was not a well man, but I truly believe that the nursing profession put him in the grave sooner rather than later… he was a delicate soul, and that cut throat business with not so much as a “thank you” or even a “kiss my ass” can be hard for the most stable person… but I am off the subject…

We were discussing Hurricane Katrina, and the fact that there were some nurses and nurses’ aides and nursing home owners who received criticism for abandoning patients as the water level rose to save their own lives.  I do not know the entire story, and I couldn’t find any recent information concerning this online, so I may not have all the facts, but I do know that some wrongful death suits have been filed…  What I do know is this:  If I was at a job in this type of situation, I would do my absolute best to do what I could for the people that I could do it for, but if it became obvious that I could die while rescuing people, I am afraid I would have to save myself.  This may sound selfish, but really it is not.  I have children who need me.  I have children, who could possibly be given to an abusive father if anything were to happen to me.  I have children who have experienced an unbelievable amount of pain in their lives, and I would do anything to prevent more.  My patient’s parent stated it beautifully.  “There is no job I would die for.” and “There is only one person in the world I would die for, my child.”  Would you die for your job?  How many people do you believe would?  Why do they expect healthcare professionals to do so?  Don’t misunderstand me… I would do EVERYTHING in my power to help, but I have absolutely got to put my family before everyone, even my patients.  Is that so hard to understand?  Don’t think that any healthcare worker who feels that they have ever made the wrong decision in a bad situation is not haunted by that decision night and day, because they are.  I thank God because right now I have a job where this wouldn’t even be an issue… I mean, how hard is it to scoop up one patient and get out?  But imagine being in charge of a hall of 40, 50… I have had 60 patients in my charge and been the only nurse… Healthcare professionals are often put into situations, into which people who work in other professions could not even begin to comprehend, and they deal not with software, or customers, or clothing, or accounting… they deal with HUMAN LIFE!  Yet everyone is so quick to criticize… And I do realize that some healthcare professionals are negligent… there are negligent people in every profession, but the majority of people I have met in this profession are trying to do their job the best that they can…

I am certainly no saint… I have learned a long time ago that forming a bond with patients will only get you in trouble… as a general rule they don’t care about you and forming an attachment will only get you hurt feelings and a write up… but I am a nurse, and I believe in doing a good job when I am paid to do so, so that is what I do.  I always do my absolute best and nothing less… I do not have to be deeply in love with all my patients, or even like them, to take care of them well.  (Of course not talking about my current patient… my current job is vastly different from what I write about here, and I believe it impossible to stay detached from a child that you care for one on one for any length of time…)

While I realize that it is upsetting to loose a loved one under any circumstances, and it seems even easier if there is someone to blame, these people filing wrongful death suits against the nursing home owners are the people who chose to place their loved ones there, rather than care for them themselves.  Now I am not being critical of nursing home placement, it is very necessary at times and I understand that people need to work and take care of their own families or can’t handle grandmother, or dad or etc. but you are suing the people who spoon fed your mother, who continued to do so even when she spit pureed peas onto their clothes and screamed obscenities at them, they continued to coax her to eat because she is diabetic and they know that her blood sugar could drop dangerously low… you are suing the nurses aide who rolled your father over and wiped fecal matter off of him while he made lewd comments about what he would like to do to her…. you are suing the nurse who noticed your uncle slipping out of his wheelchair and ran to assist him back into it even though she weighs 110 pounds and he weighs 300 and she tore her rotator cuff doing so, but if she had taken the time to look for another person to help her he could have seriously injured himself…

Just realize that the next time that you read about a nurse who has been accused of abuse, or negligence, or about a malpractice suit filed against a physician, or a nursing home being sued by an irate person who’s 110 year old aunt who wasn’t ready to die… there are 100 good nurses, good doctors, good nursing homes… trying to make a difference, or at the very least trying to do a good job.