08.15.07
Lack of respect?
As a young nurse I found caring for elderly, infirm people a bit of a challenge. While I got on well with my own older relatives none of them were actually that old. I found it difficult to relate to people who were confused, infirm and often incontinent. My elderly care placement during my training was not my favorite. I have memories of a night spent changing the bed of one patient probably 10 times due to her diarrhea and urinary incontinence. I am not sure if we had any pads but we certainly can’t have been using them. However I do know that we treated that old lady with compassion as we turned her washed her and made her comfortable even when she fought with us during her confusion.
Even though this wasn’t my favourite group of patients, I was a nurse, it was my job to provide the best nursing care to everyone I came into contact with. What’s more older people have always been pretty large users of the health services, so there was no real way of getting away from them (unless you went into children’s nursing and I didn’t really feel drawn to that specialty either). Gradually I discovered that having multiple illnesses didn’t render people senile just because they were over 70 and I also found that even those who couldn’t recognise their own relatives had feelings and could feel pain. These people had (often until days before) led active lives, they had been people with important jobs; they had managed large families and of course had lived through and often fought in world wars.
It is some time since I can say I nursed a patient but I have heard plenty of tales of things not being right when it comes to the care of elderly people I have heard the way nurses and those meant to be carers have spoken to older people and I have been told of the experiences of others. Today a parliamentary select committee report has stated that “an entire culture of change” is needed in the way older people are treated within the health care system. They say that people’s human rights are being abused as those who should be caring for them leave them with inadequate food and hydration, do not respect privacy, roughly handle them and generally handle these vulnerable people in a manner they would not (I hope) treat their dog. Age concern put the number of older people in the UK suffering neglect in this way at 500,000. This is taking place in hospitals and care homes alike and no doubt also in people’s own homes.
I have always tried to gauge the appropriate level of care to be that which I would expect for my own grandmother (or other close relative) and in my view this appears to fall pretty far short. If we are to believe this reports and the anecdotes that litter the newspapers and internet sites on an almost daily basis then nursing faces a major challenge. Many of these older people probably do not come into contact with a qualified nurse on a daily basis, but of course some will. It is however, up to nurses to set the standards here, to demonstrate the attitudes and level of care that everyone who comes in contact with them should expect. It is up to us to be vigilant, to listen to the stories of our patients and their families, it is up to us to report poor care and to make every attempt to change it. As relatives and as people who for example pass through a nursing home or hospital we must be prepared to blow the whistle on poor care, on verbal and on physical abuse. Elderly people account for a very large and growing proportion of our population. We must treat them with the respect they deserve. Don’t forget one day that will be us.
Picture from here
Elaine said,
August 15, 2007 at 8:07 pm
I entirely agree. However, one of the things that may be causing/impinging on this unsatisfactory care is the level of staffing. Just before I retired 10 years ago I did Bank work in 30-bed Acute Medical wards, and could not believe the difference in the staffing levels from when I was a staff nurse some 15 years earlier. When you are overworked and overtired it must be hard to keep to appropriate levels of care, particularly as feeding an elderly patient or changing them can be very time consuming and all the time you are aware of the 29 other patients waiting for you, and the buzzers never stop and there is only you and 2 health care assistants (and one of them has gone on her break).
Julie said,
August 15, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Yes I completely agree Elaine. Yesterday I talked a bit about pay, but in my experience it is not the amount you earn that would make you leave, or make you lose motivation but the way you are treated by colleagues, managers and how badly you feel the organisation itself treats you. It most certainly a complex issue.
jim toal said,
August 23, 2007 at 2:15 am
Hi
Sorry not a nurse, not a doctor, in fact nothing whatsoever to do with the medical profession. What I am is a son, grandson and yes I am getting older.
What I find interesting is that we are shocked that nurses and doctors can be cruel to elderly patients. Why? People in the medical profession are the same as us’ People’, we forget that. They have the same problems we all do, mental and physical. They are under the same if not more pressures we all are.
Throughout history there have been evil and perverted people, this is not a new fad.
What is new is the way families are not close any more. So if a grandmother is being cruelly treated and her family do not visit regularly, if at all. They are as much to blame as that cruel nurse because if they did visit, they could pick up the signs.
Society as a whole has to take responsibility for our elderly, they are not a burden. They are our past, our history, they are the reason we are here.
I would like to finish by saying that we have to remember that the majority of nurses do a fantastic job, especially more so; with top heavy management, paperwork, lack of money and the lack of respect given to nurses nowadays. More power to the nurses.
ifoundme said,
March 30, 2008 at 8:39 am
hi! i’m new to your blog. i’m a nurse who’s waiting for deployment to work there in US. i think i practically agree with jim toal about families not being close to each other. my aunt who is due to retire end of this year swore that she will be coming home here in the philippines for retirement. it’s not because she doesn’t like US. she just doesn’t like the idea that she will someday be left in a nursing home be forgotten by her family. here in our country the elderly are being well taken care of. they are treated like queens and kings by their children. oftentimes the children will fight with one another as to who will their parents stay with. maybe it’s because they appreciate the efforts of what their parents had gone through before in order for them to be sent to school or have better lives. as you can see, we are a 3rd world country. we always struggle to survive. so to be able to take care and give comfort to your parents is already a good definition of success and i guess that just shows gratitude in action.