Are healthcare workers becoming more rude and obnoxious?

Still stihl waters 3

Through my many interactions with hospital and medical staff over the years I've found the best staff in the hospital to be the catering and cleaning staff, nurses now are overpaid pill carriers with nothing to do only wait for the doctor to tell them what pills to pass out, the bestowed admiration and hero status is wasted on the most of them because they've long forgotten why they got into nursing in the first place

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118030969#Comment_118030969

Not a slight on nurses but I value carers more then nurses... proper front line..

Still stihl waters 3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118030981#Comment_118030981

Most definitely, now don't get me wrong I couldn't do their job but that's because I don't want to, I've had multiple jobs over the years, I don't see why some don't just move on when they get sick of it and save themselves and their patients the misery, not all are bad but an awful lot are battle hardened veterans who have become disinterested, do us all a favour and leave

They're also extremely stretched, and under extra pressure these last 18 months, having to put up too with the pandemic sceptics.

jo187

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118030099#Comment_118030099

I think me saying relax is a victim of the lack of tone in text. As I was generally concerned about the clear stress the op is under and the effects of that on him/her.

My comment about nursing home or help in some way was constructive comment on my behalf.

Not saying this is the case for the op. But in my experience one family member is left to deal with the care of the family member. The rest of the family live there lives, while they become overwhelmed with everything.

People often feel a shame or failure to place someone in care or get professional care help at home.

I was trying to make op feel comfortable exploring that as an option for them.

Really seems my original post was taken differently then intended.

Tom Mann Centuria

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118030992#Comment_118030992

Unfortunately if the older disinterested carers left we'd be even further up shít creek with home care than we are now. Some counties are waiting weeks into months trying to get carers for time slots and that's even after the Draconian home care cuts from a few years back.

Lots of those patients are in acute hospitals waiting, or end up there because family carers can no longer cope.

I work on a general ward. While I, as an over paid pill carrier waitil for a doctor to tell me what to do, I try extremely hard to be polite and friendly and tell student nurses that no matter how bad your day is going, there's lots of people in our care who's are considerably worse. And most patients and their families are great, regardless of their plight, and those interactions for me are still the best bit of the job.

Not to say I'm perfect and I'm sure when I've gone to some patients in the past, I'm sure I must have been a bit abrupt. With the best will in the world, it's quite tricky not to get slightly irritated when, and here a few examples (as I say still very much as minority) Bear in mind you could be trying your best to reorientate someone with memory difficulties or mobilise someone who's unsteady or toilet someone while all these are going on:

a completely capable person is ringing a callbell to ask you to get their phone charger out of a drawer they just put something in,

or tell you they have pain and demand pain relief immediately, when they just seconds before told a doctor they have no pain and want to go home, so the doctor didn't chart anything,

or ask why the ward television doesn't have sky and what am I going to do about it,

or when a patient demands a visitor, and will not take no for an answer, and it's the nurses fault they can't have a visitor when the policy currently is limited visitors,

or they want a vase for flowers and insist it is their right to have (even though infection control doesn't allow them)

or continually insist on a side room because they pay their VHI (while I agree it's terrible there aren't any siderooms, unless they want us to knit them one they aren't getting one regardless of what subs they pay)

Yesterday I had a fully alert and oriented forty year old patient (who had a fully functional mobile phone he was using all day). His father was shouting in my face demanding to know why we didn't inform him his son was in hospital. I did thank Jebus I was wearing a mask because I'm sure it hid my jaw dropping beautifully.

There certainly are people who work in the hospital I am in who's manner isn't great, but as someone posted before, it's no different from anywhere else, it's a job, and you're going to get good, bad and indifferent. I think we're quite lucky that where I work most are good or at worst, indifferent.

OP point about nurses from Asia is an interesting one, and I think there are cultural aspects where some don't initially interact with patients as much, partly because personal care where they trained wouldn't have been done by a nurse, but by a family member, and language is still a difficulty for newer staff (of which in recent months there have been many). In my experience most nurses from other countries communication skills improve massively over time and they can be just as good or better than European trained nurses.

Tl;dr life is a rich tapestry blah blah blah.

Bananaleaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027513#Comment_118027513

Yeah but they CHOSE to work there. The health service hasn't become underfunded and understaffed overnight. And the general public's ire over it is not a new thing. The state of the Irish health system is irrelevant. It is no more the patient's fault it is that way than it is the healthcare worker's. There are some nurses in Irish hospitals who have absolutely no business being there. And I'd imagine that nobody feels more strongly about that than the good ones who have to work alongside them.

OP, I do agree with others that the Asian comment didn't need to be made, but I admire the fact that you are calling out some health care workers. I say some because obviously, like any profession, there are good and bad.

It's like some kind of weird superstition thing in Ireland that everyone has to go around saying that all our nurses are angels. They're bloody not

Windowsnut

I can honestly say that I found the nurses that looked after my grandmother after heart valve replacement were the kindest and caring people of all the staff I encountered in the HSE.

That said, I have had some less than positive experiences in the last ten years with private consultants, doctors and administrators, I have found that some of them have become extremely obnoxious and full of their own self importance.

My Grandfather was a gentle old soul, he had a top company VHi plan all his working life and he developed cancer in his late 70's. While Chemo worked for a few years and my mum had been diligently caring for him, one day the consultant just walked into to him and said "Now Mr Mulvey, how would you like to die?" completely unexpected and out of the blue. The poor man nearly collapsed on the spot.

Likewise a few years later consultants kept putting a severe abdominal infection my grandmother had that went on for nearly four months down to tummy bugs, the private consultants didn't cop it at all, and it wasn't until it was too late that an overworked doctor in the public system spotted that the issue was more than just a stomach bug. He did his best but couldn't save her. But I still remember the consultants in the private hospital dismissing her very flippantly pretty much taking her money in one hand and telling her to get lost, one fella went on with such a palaver trying to look down his nose at her that you could nearly see his brain through his nostrils. My blood still boils thinking about it.

An uninsured driver slammed into my partners car doing around 190kph a few months ago, the hospital gave her a quick look over and sent her home, she is a shell of her former self, she has been passed from pillar to post with consultants fobbing her to physio and physio passing her back saying she needs surgery. The Irish health system has become just such a head wrecking experience of late, my heart goes out to those needing treatment during the last two years as it seems you always need someone to bat and fight for you when you are in such a vulnerable position in these hospitals.

My Cousins mother in law was in hospital during Covid and said apparently a Doctor walked onto the ward she was on just before they were settling down for the night and said that if anybody over 80 had cardiac arrest during the night, they would not be resuscitating them. What a thing to say and do to people - just because your over 80 you don't deserve a chance?

One particular surgery in South Dublin also comes to mind, the receptionist thinks she is the doctor the way she carries on. An Outwardly rude and obnoxious person - I don't know how the doctor is retaining his patients given the way she speaks to people.

Strumms

problem with carers really they are under appreciated and under compensated for the work and responsibility they have ...

Bananaleaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118031146#Comment_118031146

Fair play to you for sharing your experiences. I can't even go there with mine. One is too raw (and is an ongoing case in fact, so it isn't even in my best interest to mention details) and the other is about my dad, who is alive and well, thank God, but I get too angry thinking about what we went through with him to even begin getting into it.

Have also had wonderful experiences with fabulous people in the health service too.

I look after my own health anyway, but the experience I have had with hospitals and family members over the years has shaken me to my core. You really don't want to have to go to a hospital unless you really really need to be there imo

RulesOfNature

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058213374/are-healthcare-workers-becoming-more-rude-and-obnoxious

You were ready to punch someone? And someone annoyed you because they are asian and you couldnt tell if they were a man or woman?

Do you understand how demented and mentally ill you sound? Usually I'd tell you I'd crack your head open on the sidewalk, but it seems you are legitimately sick in the head and in need of medical help from the very people you like to humiliate.

If you want to discuss this issue in real life I'm open to suggestion.

Bananaleaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118031167#Comment_118031167

I can hardly believe I am writing this sentence, but .... cracking someone's head open on the sidewalk is far more demented than giving them a punch, so I'm not really sure you are best placed to be casting judgements there 🙈

surrender monkey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118031167#Comment_118031167

I don't think they sound demented and mentally ill, I think they sound frustrated and overwrought. Something you would understand if you had the worry of dealing with a patient with dementia it is non stop and can go on literally for years. I hope you never have to experience it in your family.

PalLimerick

Ireland has a **** health service because of the people that work in it from the top down to the bottom and that includes our God like Nurses. I deal with Nurses five days a week and I've no doubt Nurses contribute to some deaths with their lack of professionalism. They spend a lot of their time online shopping when they are meant to be monitoring seriously ill patients or entering vital data in to computer systems.

They are friendly with managers and they get away with it. Most are horrible people. I must say I've met a few that would go to the World's end for the patient but they are rare. We live in a World where we must not condemn them for fear of the backlash from the clappers and torch shiners. I've reported many and have video and photo footage of their **** carry on which I intend to pass to a journalist or website for a story about their behaviour.

PalLimerick

.........

PalLimerick

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118031167#Comment_118031167

It's not that easy to crack heads Chuck Norris which I'd highly doubt you're capable of anyway Lol. This is a discussion forum not a fight match making service. Grow up Chuck Lol. I've reported your comment for abusive behaviour. Hope you get banned again.

Fitz II

,.,

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118028033#Comment_118028033

Empathy ? Lol.

Having worked in various services rolls throughout my years I know people like the OP. Literally got a chip on their shoulder about everything. They roll around feeling they are entitled to everything and will quite happily and openly treat staff like crap with not even a change in their facial expression.

The mistake the OP made here was to say the quiet stuff loud. You don't have to read between the lines here to define someone's obvious character. Asian ... Transgender...foreign nationals...

Give up the foe indignation. There's no defending that. I've no doubt they stood there shouting their feelings at the time loudly as so often the entitled folk do.

Glook

They have really tough jobs at the best of times and they've just been through a pandemic.

I'd understand if they were a little moody with me.

It's called having empathy.

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118030806#Comment_118030806

With all due respect. The hospital was not the place for her. As you found out the care home was that place. This should have been a GP to care home .

There is an element of thinking a hospital is a do it all location. It's not.

ednwireland

my gp isn't any better, although the nurse in the practice is brilliant (blood pressure monitor, ecg) I had bloods done and supposed to get a scan (private ) and absolutely no response from the gp I have to chase them for everything.

I tried moving but no other gp is taking patients.

and dont get me started on the affidea clinic that doesnt answer the phone, healthcare professionals my

.......

if I treated my customers at work like this I would be up in front of management.

although when I did get seriously ill and finally got onto a ward the nurses were brilliant. the less said about the consultant the better.

Tom Mann Centuria

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118031252#Comment_118031252

But you're annecdotal evidence is worth as much as mine, fúck all.

notAMember

I’ve met some fantastic healthcare professionals, the staff dealing with my grandparents Illnesses and deaths were respectful and kind to them and the family. But that was 15 years ago and every interaction I’ve had with the health service since has been brutal. Maternity nurses were almost evil. Grabbing nipples, leaving mothers trapped in bed on cathedars after stitches and wheeling the baby out of their reach. Not checking women for hours when risk of bleeding or death is a risk after childbirth. I wasn’t even surprised when I heard that incident of the woman falling out of bed and resulting in the death of both her and her baby in CUH.

The aftercare my father got after an op was awful. He was roughly man handled into a bed, which damaged a drain put in during an op. I was with him, and did the “excuse me I know you’re very busy but there is a lot of blood coming from the wound, the bed is soaked” … ignored, they were chatting about holiday plans. “Excuse me, can you take a look please, the blood is pooling on the ground” ignored. “FFS he is having a seizure”

3 units of blood later he survived but needed another op to get the drain replaced.

I've been in and out of our hospitals on numerous occasions. This included two extended stays. So I've met a lot of nurses in the course of that time. Only one who was remotely unpleasant and that was pretty brief and small in scheme of things. I've been in scenarios where I've gotten results that had me crying in my bed, the people who talked to me and helped me relax were invariably nurses. I've even had nurses remember me months after I was a patient and say hello. If I ever had concerns or questions, most of the time they acted as the first port of call.

So, overall nurses are bloody fantastic and are constantly dealing with highly unpleasant and difficult situations. They are not well paid for what they do and imho, it's one of the hardest jobs out there.

surrender monkey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118031341#Comment_118031341

You can't bring a person to a care home who has had a stroke. She had to be brought to a and e and admitted to hospital for care. The hospital would not release her back into the care of her family. You can only get a relative into a care home when a suitable place has been identified. This is how the health care system works

The irony of people judging the op for the kind of person he is but calling him things like a dick and an asshole themselves. What does that make ye then?

Boards hasn't changed much I see. The amount of Bob Loblaws on this site.

AckwelFoley

It can be a tough sector to be in and remember when covid first hit and we didn't know alot about it,they still had to go to work and face the risks.

That said, they're still not immune from criticism and frankly some of them not would've better served working with wood or stone because people aren't their best suit.

The doctor that told my grandmother she was going to die of stomach cancer

Is there anything more that can be done? As she sobbed- No you're going to die, you're going to have to deal with it

PalLimerick

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118031377#Comment_118031377

The proof is in the pudding, go visit an A&E and you will see a **** health service with **** staff from top to bottom.

Nermal

People respond to incentives.

What incentive do these people have to be nice to you?

What are you going to do - take your business elsewhere?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118031336#Comment_118031336

The op explained early in the thread he deliberately raised the issue of race, and he never said anything about anyone being "transgender" so stop beating that drum over and over to defend the chip on your own shoulder.

Your responses have done an impressive job proving the OPs original post was 100% correct about attitudes. Plenty of posters have now posted that they have had bad experiences, are they all at fault for expecting too much of the people who are supposed to be professionals in their field?

I doubt you have an ounce of empathy left in your body - maybe you once did, but whatever is left is not towards the patients or their carers.