‘We go home and burst into tears’
THE medical profession is on its knees with a chronic lack of staff meaning patients are not getting the care they deserve.
One nurse, who asked not to be named, told first-hand of the crisis in our hospitals and the impact on patients with too few nurses to go round.
She works in a busy city accident and emergency department where every day the numbers of patients queuing up to be seen because of a lack of beds causes staff real anxiety. But when that is exacerbated by the lack of staff, the situation escalates.
She said: “A lack of staffing has a huge impact on morale. It used to be if someone phoned in sick you just got on with it but now when there so many vacancies everywhere one member of staff not coming in is crucial.
“We don’t have enough to cover all the areas and at the start of your shift you know it is going to be horrid.”
But the real impact is the effect on patients.
She said: “You just can’t do what you need to do in time.
“Observations need to be done frequently but they do not get done as frequently as they are meant to and the drugs aren’t done on time.
“Quite a lot of our doctors are very self sufficient and are a big help in hanging up fluids because sometimes maybe just one nurse on duty is trained to make up intravenous drugs because others are off sick so it is left to them to do it and there can be a real backlog.
“Patients are vulnerable, they do require antibiotics, and we are left to prioritise who is going to be first, it can be down to who has waited longest or who has sepsis.
“We call it the golden hour if someone comes in with sepsis. IV fluids, antibiotics and blood cultures all need to be done within that hour of arrival but often that doesn’t happen.
“Sometimes they have to wait to see a doctor. “If there was more staff we could at least start IV and get blood cultures done.
“The lack of staff is having a direct negative impact on patients and we are all a bit fed up with it.”
She claimed: “It is like groundhog day when we go into work now. You ask if there are any beds and you are told ‘no’ so we have to rely on whatever beds are in the bed store for patients in A&E to give them some comfort because they will be staying there for hours. We maybe find four beds but we have six patients and we have to decide which are well enough to stay on a trolley. These are usually elderly patients who have paid National Insurance all their lives and we feel we are failing them.
“A good few of us have gone home and burst into tears because everything we wanted to do – and everything we have been taught the rationale of doing – we are not getting to do.
“I can’t put it into words. It is just so sad. We are giving the best care we can but it is certainly not the excellent care Nicola Sturgeon spoke of at her press conference.”
At the start of your shift you know it’s going to be horrid