Sensationalism

I got sent home from work today, sick. I’m in bed feeling like death, watching tv. Felt compelled to write after watching the dispatches that’s just been on channel 4, about the Liverpool care pathway for the dying patient.

Bloody hell. As if nursing isn’t hard enough. As if it’s not hard enough to tell a family their loved one is dying. As if it’s not hard enough to deliver that care to that family who have had their lives devastated.

Yes I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that there are people who receive poor care. And I’m not stupid enough to believe that all people receive the good communication and compassion that they deserve.

But the report tonight, and the ongoing reports in the daily mail, terrify patients. When a patient is dying and the family are told, the fear at the mention of the lcp is always palpable. I’m proud to say that working where I work, looking after many patients coping with a terminal diagnosis, and looking after many families who have a dying loved one, we do our job well. Yes on occasion we’re short staffed, just as any other ward within the nhs is. Yes we’re tired, yes there are days where we’re not on our a game because shockingly we all have things going on at home too.

But I can say, hand on heart, that when we walk through those doors we’re nurses first and foremost. We always deliver a high standard of patient care, and for patients who are dying, they get our undivided attention. We do everything we can to give them their wishes, we fight their battles for them when it seems like a lack of transport, or lack of availability of equipment makes it look impossible for them to go home to die. We make these things possible for our patients.

More than once, when a patient is poorly, one of the other nurses on the ward will take over an extra load of patients so the nurse looking after the dying patient can focus on them and their family.

I’m incredibly proud to say we received an email within the last six months from a family whose husband/father/grandfather we had nursed in his dying days. The doctors stated they thought the LCP was the best option, the family, like so many others, only know what they’ve read in the papers and seen on tv. One of our nurses who was looking after this family spent three hours, staying an hour after her shift had finished, to answer the questions of the family, to explain what the LCP was about. To reassure the family that if a patient was capable of eating and drinking then we go above and beyond to ensure they get exactly what they want. To ensure the family that if a patient isn’t offered food and water it’s because the risk of them aspirating is so high, but that regular mouth care is always performed to ensure they’re not dry or uncomfortable.

The family emailed the chief executive of the hospital to say that we had completely changed their minds about the LCP, because he received the most dignified death, was nursed with humour, and we nursed the whole family and not just the patient.

I know not every patient receives the care they deserve and that’s a massive failing of the staff within the hospital, not the fault of a protocol which in those circumstances is obviously poorly implemented.

I know I can hold my head up high, along with the whole team I work with, to say we give our patients the utmost in care, every single one of them. We text after we’ve gone home if someone has affected us to find out how they are, because for all of the girls on the ward, it’s not just a job. We laugh and cry with these families, we know our haematology families for months and years, we nurse them as we’d wish for someone to nurse our own family members.

I love my job, I wouldn’t want to do anything else, couldn’t imaging wanting to do anything else. But the press doesn’t half make it bloody hard sometimes when you want to do the best for someone and the tool to help you do it is reported as an inhumane form of euthanasia.

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