Ward Nursing and Whistle blowing: Some quick comments

Med-Surg means general medical and general surgical wards.

These are the large dumping grounds with more acutely ill patients than ever before and horrific nurse : patient ratios. These are also the wards that get the most elderly people and the most complaints that nurses are uncaring and abusive. I have posted a thread for you to read from over at all nurses. It is mostly American but these hospital wards sound like mine and I haven't even contributed to that thread at the time of posting this. We can never get pharmacy or supplies to send us what we need. We spend hours on the phone arguing with the various departments. Radiology wants me to leave my patients without a nurse for 2 hours so I can escort one of my patients down there. The radiology department doesn't want to deal with patients! These departments will refuse to perform the tests unless the ward staff will abandon the ward to act as an escort. This in house fighting goes on all day long.



Just have a little read here over at allnurses.



http://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/i-cant-take-375764.html



I have about 5 blog posts in the works right now. I am still working on the dignity card group and also writing one about how the new whistleblower legislation doesn't mean shit. I also have one in the works about the "help" we have had from the unions. If you want to read a bit about the farce that is whistleblower protection head over to the jobbing doctor and spend some time.

If there are any NHS nurses who want to weigh in about whistleblowing, short staffing etc please let me know. We can all be anonymous here. So please, share your stories.

If you really want to get pissed off then read about what happened to Graham Pink when he whistleblew years ago. Years after he lost his job he was giving a talk to nurses and a nurse manager was overheard saying something like "I would have got rid of him a long time ago".

I have had communication from two different groups that have basically said that they don't hear any nurses complaining of deliberate short staffing on the wards and that if only we whistleblew on these situations everything would be fine and dandy. All that new legislation and protection and everything would protect us and just make everything as sweet as sugar and easy as cake. Right.

You can also read up on what has happened to Karen Reissman

Got to run. I hope everyone is having a nice weekend.