Maintain pressure on reforms to protect NHS
Latterlife Midwife
UK
Recent activity
Comments (52)
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Comment on: The other side of the sheets, part six: setbacks
Kate, now that I've found your postings just now, I'm looking forward to another series of your saga. But it's now Feb, and three months from your last entry. I hope you're doing well and are long out of hospital. Dreadful experience! Please update us!
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Comment on: Nurse fit to practise despite obscene image
There are only two comments on here that address the actual issue at hand. The rest are all directed at blaming the victim. I've just read this year-old article, and I also despair...that there are so many (or is it really just one or two trolls posting multiple times?) who actually dismiss the seriousness of this event. A so-called nursing professional who did not deny posting this image as wallpaper, but denies all responsibility for the outcome, displays such poor judgement in the first place; yet the attention is only sent to the one who unexpectedly discovers this gross image and is then belittled. I echo the comment of Anonymous | 26-Jan-2011 4:49 pm : I would question if the NMC is upholding the reputation of nursing by allowing this individual to continuing to practice. Btw, wanting counselling for suddenly being disturbed by an obscene photo of a naked man with a large dog upon him (animal abuse, as well), has no relevance to the victim's nursing abilities. On the contrary, the perpetrator's appropriateness as a nurse to vulnerable patients could be questioned.
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Comment on: PM's forum should look at staffing and not 'beat up' nurses, says its chair
Given (yes, it is a given!) that the hugely, overwhelming majority of nurses and midwives desperately want, and need (to even feel good about themselves), to give their best care every day, THIS becomes the crux of the matter: staffing! Both professional and support staff. The populace out there cannot expect the former without the latter. It's become an impossibility to give what everyone involved wants: individual patients, taxpayers, caregivers all want the best possible care, but we can only be in one physical place at a time, though we are juggling all the balls in the air all shift long. Cough up the extra money for a better professional staff-per-patient ratio, get rid of any slackers (all one or two of them per institution), and get adequate support people in for stocking, cleaning, feeding, etc. to free nurses and midwives to do what we were educated and are fairly paid (marginally) to do. If I could do my work to my best ability and satisfy my patients' needs on a regular basis, without nearly keeling over at the end of a 7.5-13 hour shift in sad desperation, I wouldn't even complain about the poor pay any more Ms. Brearley, I look forward to seeing what you can achieve.
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Comment on: Shift to midwife-led units plus HCAs could ease staff shortage
Anonymous, 1:36pm: because in many cases, it is a waste of resources and raises the risk of interventional cascades. For women with low risk pregnancies and an adequate home environment/family support who are happy to get on with labour and birth without epidurals, birth centres and home births are beneficial to all. Please do some research on the subject because I'm not going to get into the extensive information available right now.
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Comment on: 'Recognise and reward the moral code of nurses'
I have a big problem equating striking or not striking with a "moral code." Strikes come only after a long period of dissatisfaction, during which administrators fight tooth and nail to avoid improving workers' conditions and pay structures. Nursing has always come under the realm of "too sacrosanct" to take job action, or indeed, to even unionise. This has permitted relatively low pay for the level of knowledge/professional skills/work rotas required; poor scheduling practices; unreal patient ratios in a time of much sicker patients requiring more meds, procedures, and technology, to persist. That's what is immoral! When nurses from unionised American hospitals go so far as to take strike action, management staff has to get on the floor and do real nursing. It's all hands on deck, and few, if any, patients are *seriously* affected. The nurses who do put their necks on the line and actually march for the rest of us are to be commended, not termed immoral! It's a hugely brave thing to do for the benefit of the profession and the patient population. They could actually get better care in the end from nurses who have the opportunity to give proper attention to them for a change, as a result of improved working conditions and pay. Yes, being appropriately paid for the work I do (conduct some proper acuity studies to actually validate what nurses/midwives do hour by hour!), including fair pension terms, seems only right. I was actually out of the country that day and away from the news, so was not very aware of what actually occurred. It's no wonder nursing in Britain is so many decades behind. The NHS system is absolutely wonderful for patients, which I have personally experienced. But for nursing staff, it is horrible. It's kept us from being treated as the professionals we are, and has only encouraged the public and media to see us as drudges who are over-aspirational in wanting/requiring higher education and pay. The current mantra, "too posh to wash" is a perfect example. The general public does not understand what being an excellent nurse entails until they are face-to-face with a health crisis themselves. Then they can't praise us highly enough (or take their dissatisfactions to the Daily Mail). For the other nursing dinosaurs out there getting their knickers in a twist about this, I am one, too. 40 years qualified has shown me that though the basics never change, the acuity does and we deserve to be treated with more respect. The trolls who labour on about "morals" are only trying to keep nursing conditions in the Dark Ages.
