Nursing the Nation

Last week, it felt as though I was close to death.



Maybe not a pleasant way to start a blog entry, but true nevertheless, and that’s no exaggeration.

At 2am on Monday morning, I was taken to hospital.

I was in agony. So much so that the pain was indescribable. It wasn’t like anything I had ever experienced before, and as someone who has been dropped on their head as an adult, I have felt pain.

Not only that, but I was alone, miles away from my family, and scared.

Scared because I though that I was actually dying.

Again, agony.

Four days later, still in a fair amount of pain, I was released back into the wild.

It was only a kidney infection. However, the pain was that bad that I can only imagine that giving birth is comparable.

Anyway, the main crux of this blog is to praise the care I received while in hospital.

Not the care I received from the Doctors, however; they merely visited me once every day, hit me on the back and asked me whether it hurt.

Well, of course it hurt! That was why I was there and not at the pub!

The care I received from the nurses, on the other hand, was incredible.

Everyday, they made sure I got my medication, was fed, well, made my bed and were at my beck and call at every hour should I need anything.

The only time I did press my alarm was to ask for another blanket as I was cold.

Indeed, I am reminded of a previous blog about nursing, in which David Cameron argued that nurses ARE the NHS.
(http://rosalindmash.blogspot.com/2007/01/future-of-nursing.html)

After my recent experience, I wholeheartedly agree.

But it makes me wonder WHY they are paid a relatively tiny amount in comparison to Doctors when they do a much greater deal of work and undertake a larger proportion of the care of patients.

The NHS and the government should begin to give nurses more recognition for the work they do, because without them, this country’s health service would not have a leg to stand on.

The Future of Nursing.

As part of my incredibly interesting work experience at Health Service Journal, and I’m not being sarcastic, I attended ‘The Future of Nursing’ conference today.

It was actually fairly interesting, with a lot of big-wig types from the industry making presentations about the challenge of nursing, the opportunities it offers and the need to develop educational resources for example.

And then there was David Cameron…

In his address to the conference, Mr. Cameron asserted that the Conservatives would be making the NHS a political priority.

Nurses are the NHS he said, and if the government can get nursing right, then they will get the NHS right.

Healthcare in Britain is constantly changing and nurses play a huge part in every aspect of that change

Cameron said he believed that past governments have tended to approach the NHS like a machine, thinking that it can be reorganized without consideration for the people.

The conservatives will pledge “no more pointless reorganizations. No more restructuring at the expense of the people who work in the system.”

Currently, there is disillusionment with target culture which is endemic within the NHS, he said. Healthcare workers should focus on patients and not on government targets

Despite this, Mr. Cameron also said that he wants the NHS to exceed European averages in survival and recovery rates. Surely this is a political target, even though he said that he wants to take the politics out of the day-to-day running of the NHS?

Cameron also had some interesting things to say about employment in the nursing field, which can be seen at BBC online.

So to conclude, today was fairly interesting. David Cameron is a good public speaker and really engaged my attention. He was also wearing a nice tie. It was green.