Nursing!

 Hello readers,

The nursing profession has consistently been undervalued, both in the public and among their own colleagues. 

My parents fled from the communist regime in Vietnam in the mid 70s and lost everything except the clothes on their back - they even lost all their official papers.  They have now spent over 25 years in a country they call home. During the early days here, they had to integrate into a foreign society and immerse themselves into an unfamiliar culture. They have also always worked hard to give their children a good life. It may have been very difficult, but they did it. 

My brother and I being born and bred in England, know nothing about Vietnam; not its history, culture or society. We may be biologically Vietnamese, but our hearts and minds are as British as every Tom, Dick or Harry. This has meant my brother and I sometimes struggle to see eye to eye with our parents. 

When I graduated with an undergraduate degree in neuroscience, it seemed like a natural step to move onto clinical research. However, some time in 2004, after 2 prolonged periods of mental and physical illness, while recovering from pulmonary tuberculosis and relapse of my schizoaffective disorder, I made the difficult decision to quit my PhD in stroke and language rehabilitation. I was deeply unhappy. And during intermittent periods of lucidity I became deeply reflective. 

My huge admiration and respect for the nurses that cared for me came about from the excellent way they helped me during my year long battle with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). And for the help I received from mental heath nurses (RMN). The TB was was acquired while volunteering in my gap year in India. 

My view of nursing as a profession changed  forever. Nursing as a career became a calling.  

My parents had instilled in me the narrow minded view that all nurses did was mop up vomit, wipe peoples arses, and hand doctors their equipment. While I agree that this was indeed some of what they did, it was only a fraction of the procedures and processes nurses do! There are a million and one other activities a nurse will carry out in any given shift. 

So, who will sit beside a despairing, suicidal patient in a busy psychiatric ward? Who then takes the time to just be there and give support, compassion, comforting companionship and hope? As a suicide survivor/warrior myself, I can answer that it was always a nurse. When people describe their recovery journey from poor mental health, they will all emphasise the quiet support of someone who was there for them. That someone was invariably a nurse. 

I've been a patient in several mental health units and hospitals over the years. The consultant psychiatrists were never on the ward for long. They never witnessed patient incidents. It was always the long suffering nurses and health care workers that were on the front line. It was the long suffering nurses who I hit and and shouted at when I was acutely psychotic. They sat and supported me. The consultant psychiatrists never dealt with me kicking and screaming. Nurses are very highly trained specialists in their field, they work on in-patient acute wards and in the community -  there, the community psychiatric nurses multi-task in their attempts at assisting patients to re-integrate back into community/society. 

Before the coronavirus pandemic, nurses were always the scapegoat - when MRSA was rife, it was the nurses who the media claimed spread it due to poor hand washing and hygiene. But did they spare a thought to blame poor hospital cleanliness? No. Why didn't the media apportion some blame on doctors on ward rounds who move from patient to patient without washing their hands? 

Fast forward to today and we see healthcare workers of all types coming together. Our NHS became much more aware of how covid can and has been transmitted over the entire globe...bottom line, nurses are again under the media spotlight highlighting the fact that early on in the pandemic, frontline staff had shortages in personal protective equipment (PPE). How is that helping the nursing staff?? We need to get behind our NHS staff! They are on the frontline every shift keeping us safe! Just like they always have and will continue to do so! 

I graduated with my post graduate diploma in nursing in 2009. This was after an accelerated 2 year nursing course at Nottingham University. However, I took 4 years to graduate due to having to take 2 periods of medical leave  of 6 months each. 

Has your view on nursing changed yet?