Dear Julie
You seem to realise that things could be better in the ED!
Ever thought of emigrating to New Zealand ?
Even if your senior consultant/director is prepared to put their job on the
line, go to the media etc etc I would estimate it will be 6-8 years before
things markedly improve where you are
Surprisingly some of the greatest resisitors to change are those who work in
the Emergency Departments themselves. To a certain extent the culture of
failure can become endemic
For example:
Here in Dunedin our average waiting time is 45 minutes and only very rarely
do patients wait as long as three hours to be seen. But we still fall short
of Australasian standards and have been allocated substantial staffing
increases from this year to get better.
My (cynical) brother is a charge nurse in a busy department in the UK where
he tells me they are much busier , less well off for staff (who are all very
junior) and patients often wait for many hours to be seen.
However he thinks that the problems there are so different and my life here
is so easy in comparison that my suggestions and comments on how to effect
change are of no real relevance. We don't discuss work any more to avoid
arguments.
In fact Emergency Departments (or rather the patients who go there) are much
more comparable the world over than some might think. The problems are the
same everywhere and the same battles have to be fought and won.
Where does effecive changes start? The first thing is to stop blaming the
patients for being there, and in particular loose comments (easily
overheard) by disaffected staff which imply that this is the problem!!
6-8 years
JohnC
-----Original Message-----
From: Julie Hassell [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 7:36 AM
To: Gautam
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: early winter crisis?
I work in an A&E in Belfast and 7 over night patients is nothing. This
in an A&E with 7 cubicles. I don't want to turn this to one of those 'so
you think you're hard done by' conversations but having just moved hear
from West Yorkshire I have never seen or heard of such chronic crap bed
management. It apparently started here two years ago so has ceased to be
a 'winter crisis' situation, no reprieve in the summer months. Last year
23 patients were nursed in this A&E over one night....what kind of
service is that? This is modern emergency care in the twenty first
century how embarrassed am I that this happens in my own department but
as the new Staff Nurse don't yet feel I am yet in a position to
contribute constructively although not verbalising my utter despair
every morning seems to be winning me more friends. I have nursed
patients on chairs overnight when I know they need a bed or a least a
trolley leaving the likes of me to make a decision over who
deserves/needs the trolley more. Once that hurdle is out of the way I
have to decide who actually gets a cubicle in which the lights can be
switched off and you have some hope of not getting to know all about the
new care assistant's love life. Those patients not able to go in a
cubicle are nursed in the middle of the department where the lights stay
on and are constantly moved so that the drug cupboad can be reached or
an oxygen mask replaced. God forbid those in the middle need a bed pan
or bottle, if they do then someone who may have been asleep in a cubicle
will be moved out into the middle so that someone else can excrete in
semi privacy in a space that they will be luckily to get back into. How
long do they expect me to do this for before I to see my own sickness as
a wecome reprieve. I'm not affraid of hard work I'm affraid of something
going wrong and these conditions I have been informed that 'I will have
to put up with' is a major contributing factor. How understanding will
management be then I wonder.
Please let me know what you think.
In message <[log in to unmask]>, Gautam
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>Is it just us, or has winter started early this year: twice this week
>we've had >20 hour waiters (for beds) in A&E. 7 poor punters one night,
>3 the next. Maybe that doesn't sound to bad to many of you, but we've
>only got space for 15 trolleys, so half of them out of action for a day
>is a significant problem.
>
>Dr G Ray
>Staff Grade
>A&E
>Sussex
>Reply to [log in to unmask]
--
Julie Hassell
######################################################################
Attention:
This e-mail is privileged and confidential. If you are not the
intended recipient please delete the message and notify the sender.
Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author.
######################################################################
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|
