Friday, May 25, 2007
Aren't NHS nurses wonderful? I mean, you'd expect them to be, but it's only when you're on the receiving end of their care that you truly notice. You notice that doctors only give you their time in carefully controlled three-minute bursts, whereas nurses are there for you all the time. They work stupidly long shifts (hang on, she only went home 11 hours ago, and here she is back again fresh as a daisy). They smile, even when they're knackered and the patient they're treating is being a bastard. They'll function even under inhumane conditions (like for example when the ward's air conditioning is permanently broken and every day is like working in a sweaty sauna). They're willing to turn their hand to anything, from holding onto the catheter while a one-legged man hops onto a commode, to sticking tablets up a constipated backside. They can cajole a critically ill patient slowly back into consciousness, whilst reassuring visiting relatives that somehow things aren't quite as ghastly as they appear. They'll whip a curtain around you to protect your dignity when you need to go to the toilet, and take away the incriminating evidence afterwards without ever making a fuss. They can slip a drip into your elbow joint while you're not looking, and take it out later without peeling all the hair off your arm. And, most importantly, they can make you feel like a human being in a place where it would be all too easy to feel like a miserable lump of malfunctioning flesh. Whatever they're being paid, it isn't enough.
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