Mr Smokes Blunts.
Ex-Bluelighter
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2009
- Messages
- 4,113
you shouldn't have to put up with that shit if it's happening, and I know this does happen because I've seen it myself.
When it's happened to my sister, she just sits there and takes it (which enrages me when I find out about it afterwards), because it's fucking hard to get the courage to kick off in an effective way if youre shy, or if youre just so depressed or in pain or whatever, with the whole situation of you being in hospital in the first place
my advice would be to physically write down the times they bring your meds, and press your call nurse buzzer when theyve gone 10 minutes past the time you shouldve got your next ones. sometimes there's other issues relating to lateness, but if yours is 100% about laziness of staff, then explain to them that youre in pain, and theyre late, and you need them. ask them for a reason why it's late. ask them who the sister is on shift and ask them what's the formal procedure on how to pursue complaining about, or rectifying the situation.
if your GF is with you, get her to go out to the nurses station and kick up and ask what the problem is and tell them it's unacceptable and both you and her always ask the nurses for timescales, ie if they say 'soon', ask them at approx what time, and then record it, and present that to the sister.
if youre absolutely desperate right NOW and aren't up to doing the whole nitpicky stuff, then just buzz and rebuzz and demand you get your pain meds immediately. this can sometimes cause relationship issues between you and them later, but if youre desperate it's possibly best not to give a fuck about that atm. and ask to see the sister on shift
oh, and ALWAYS ALWAYS tell the DRs about you not getting them on time when you see them on rounds 9am/1pm/5pm visits etc, or whatever they have you on. must forward feedback about it to them later. I know that doesnt help you know tho.
I know I give positive rave reviews about Jimmys a lot, but thats based on an overall opinion of 20+ years of my sisters treatment.
they regularly fuck up with her meds quite a bit, especially on being discharged, and can have us waiting around needlessly for 5 hrs before I can take her home
good luck
[edit] .. hmn, youre on morphine? very very surprised they havent given you a controllable drip of some sort to self medicate [with obvious limitations], thats what I normally see happening. every 2 hours is possibly not the norm? as its normally every 4 or 6 in the usual med & obs runs to my knowledge, or a self controlled drip .. not that should make any fucking difference.
[edit x 2] 11.30pm - 12am is shift change and the 2 have to pass on patient shift info between each other before they can leave. maybe thats the current issue, combined with the problem of 2 hr meds ... not excusing, just trying to reason what the prob is
Thanks for your advice
I will try the writing down thing. I have tried kicking off, getting my wife or family members to get involved when I am too ill, writing complaints, asking the doctors to help, and pressing the call button again and again. They have all had an alright amount of success, but the problem is as you say they treat you like scum for asking them to do stuff right. They also change shifts (as you pointed out as well), so if you manage to get them to do things right by the end of the shift it rotates and your stuck with incompetents again! 2 hourly morphine is unusual, but they never trust me with the self administration devices for some reason lol. I have also tried building a rapor with the nurses, so they'll treat me how they'd treat a friend, but that's the worst method I've used. They take it as a green light to do even less!Still, it's not the worst treatment I've had. One time they left me nil by mouth with no drip for 48s on a ward with no windows in the middle of summer. They also forgot to take me off the nil by mouth list so I didn't get to eat for 3 days. They left a big jug of piss I'd filled on the first day next to my bed, and colostomy bags all over the ward. On top of that I only got my morphine about 5 times in the 48 hours before they operated on me! their idea of infection control was to put a mop in some cold water and aimlessly swipe it around on the floor, then drain it in a sink used by the patients to brush their teeth!
I really hope I can avoid the colostomy, because another 7-14 days on here is going to drive me insane. I really don't like to complain, because I like to think they do this job because they care for people, but in a lot of cases it doesn't seem to be true.
But you must kick up a fuss if you're not getting the treatment you are entitled to. MPs are, generally, shit but I bet it's worth getting one on the case, if it really is as bad as you describe.
I feel like I would just be joining a loooong list of people complaining in a similar way. Everyone I know who has had multiple run ins with the NHS has the same stories to tell. Fuck knows what would fix the situation though... I think some of the nurses need an attitude readjustment, much like some teachers. It doesn't help that they seem to be almost immune from getting the sack. The only thing that really reigned in the police force was accountability in courts, although they are still cunts a lot of the time. Maybe if they were properly accountable this would stop though. We can only dream.
