Nice people thread part 6 - thrice by twice as nice :)

lostinrates

Generali wrote: »

Imagine how bad healthcare must be in places like France and Australia as the NHS is the Envy Of The WorldTM.

The weather is going to be $#17 this week here, grey and rainy and $#17. Luckily Mrs Generali is good with me using her bicycle to get into work as it's super-comfy; a bit like cycling a leather wing-backed chair into work.

I think its worth shouting about the good things our healthcare system acheives. Its breadth of service Is incredible, and its availability. But apologists prevent its betterment, and prevention of such decleopement with the emotive langauge, ( while all nurses are portrayed as angels I know some who seem sasistic, and most are simply normal people) and by promoting the idea that 'those foreign chappies' simply cannot get it as right as a british system we prevent change that would make the nhs better, truly enviable in more respects but more vitally....sustainable!

Generali

lostinrates wrote: »

I think its worth shouting about the good things our healthcare system acheives. Its breadth of service Is incredible, and its availability. But apologists prevent its betterment, and prevention of such decleopement with the emotive langauge, ( while all nurses are portrayed as angels I know some who seem sasistic, and most are simply normal people) and by promoting the idea that 'those foreign chappies' simply cannot get it as right as a british system we prevent change that would make the nhs better, truly enviable in more respects but more vitally....sustainable!

LIR picks up the ball with her back to goal, flicks it up with her boot, turns through 180 degrees, hits the ball on the volley and....

Goooooooooal.......



In a short paragraph you sum up much of what is wrong with countless British organisations from the NHS via the BBC and schooling (A' Levels are the Gold Standard only insomuch as they are out of date) to the Green Belt. There are so many institutions in the UK that you simply can't argue against because you just get shouted down.

It's not to say that the NHS is all bad (my Dad got very good treatment for his Alzheimer's all things considered), nor the BBC (I get loads of BBC podcasts and every soccer fan I know in Aus downloads MoTD on the sly) it's just that any criticism of those institutions, especially from a politician, is beyond The Pale.

PasturesNew

You know there's a small fan on the side of a laptop ..... if you wiggle your laptop along a bit.... there's room to dry a pair of socks in that heat

.... although I would say that my socks are TINY..... much like when the EA referred to my drying panties as "eye patches", my socks look like thumb bandages.

MiddyMum

The worst people I have had the misfortune to come across have been nurses....(I started my training when I was in my teens and realised it wasn't for me) but some really shouldn't be in the profession at all! I had to report 2 during the space of a 18 months, one used to spend way too much time going down to the vending machine on a night shift...(I actually think he went home!) and another, used to look like she had spent a night on the coke and was very rough with her patients (she was a childrens nurse, scary!).

lostinrates

MiddyMum wrote: »

The worst people I have had the misfortune to come across have been nurses....(I started my training when I was in my teens and realised it wasn't for me) but some really shouldn't be in the profession at all! I had to report 2 during the space of a 18 months, one used to spend way too much time going down to the vending machine on a night shift...(I actually think he went home!) and another, used to look like she had spent a night on the coke and was very rough with her patients (she was a childrens nurse, scary!).

I seem to remember the stats for drug and alcohol abuse in the medical professions are not negligable.

I hate to see it but i think a culture of being 'good enough' exisits in british nursing. The private enterpise running nhs minor ops etc unit i have refered to has a high percentage overseas nursing staff and doctors, and the brists stand out for all the wrong reasons, so HR there must get all their bad stereotypes confirmed. Its to be hoped of course, those who are just 'good enough' are inspired by their teams and bring the caring role back into medicine.

PasturesNew

What do nurses actually do? What's a typical day on a ward where people have been admitted and are being sorted out .... and they're just there for a few days/a week until a Doctor comes along and says "that one can go home now".

I know where my old was there was a tea-lady who brought round drinks/biscuits .... and somebody else kept coming and taking blood pressures .... but I didn't even know who the nurses were. I can't tell a nurse from a cleaner as they all wear tunics these days. And the attitude seemed to be "I am here today, on this shift... only". So there was no sense of people nursing a ward, but a series of random one-dayers.

There was a "nurses station", aka reception, where a gaggle of random people were milling about and updating records; people who were nothing to do with the ward. e.g. a pedicurist might have been in to see one person, they'd sit there, update a computer record, then they might be off to a ward on another floor .... or somebody might have just pushed a patient in a trolley onto the ward and had gone to speak to somebody in a hidden room behind reception .... but there was no sense of "This person is in charge; ask here; start here; this is where visitors need to ask" it was all "Oh, I don't work here.... this isn't my ward.... I'm just passing through".

lostinrates

Nursing is a huge career variety as i see it. Its like asking what 'admin do'. Some man the phnes, others run the business! I think nursing is a bit the same, some are in front line roles of lifesaving, some are in support roles on the front line and most make up the 'troops'. Others.....talk in gaggles at reception. Like most jobs really.

There is a new campaign starting to show abuse nurses suffer or what they do or something.

PasturesNew

They need a coherent uniform policy ... so people know who does what. And bigger name badges (you can never see who/what they are).

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

They need a coherent uniform policy ... so people know who does what. And bigger name badges (you can never see who/what they are).

Speaking of which, My mother was horrified when she first arrived in uk to see nurses going to and leaving from work in their uniforms. It still really upsets her. I like the thing of everyone in scrubs, seems so practical. Bigger Name badges and or colour coding might help though, certainly. It is awful trying as a patient to work out who is in charge.

chewmylegoff

Generali wrote: »

Imagine how bad healthcare must be in places like France and Australia as the NHS is the Envy Of The WorldTM.

the thing that frustrates me about it, is that when you suggest that a system part funded by charges to the public might be worth looking at, people accuse you of wanting old grannies to die and such like. they won't listen to the fact that such systems operated in other countries deliver better outcomes with grannies living longer - not interested.

i'm sure the NHS is the envy of many parts of the world where there is a poorer healthcare system, but it is also comprehensively not the envy of many other parts of the world where there is a demonstrably better healthcare system with better outcomes.

there needs to be an NHS audit. someone actually needs to go through the NHS and list all the things that it does, and how much it does it, and how much each of those things costs. then someone else needs go along with a big red pen and start crossing things out.

it will take a long time to do the first step, but not very long to do the rest of it.

never happen though, the whole creaking system will lurch along until it collapses and fails.