Mixed views about nursing standards in today’s hospitals

I WOULD like to take Terry Morrell to task about his scathing criticism of the nursing profession (Yorkshire Post, May 30).

When was the last time you were in hospital, Mr Morrell, being nursed by caring nurses for whom you have so little respect?

I have just, very recently, had a second bowel cancer operation, in Doncaster Royal Infirmary, and was nursed through the recovery on Ward 21.

My assessment of the care I received is as follows – very professional, thoughtful, gentle, efficient, kind, courteous and, in many cases, above and beyond the call of duty – for example, comforting words and action during the night when one can be feeling particularly vulnerable and frightened.

The standard I’m talking about here applies to all the members of the staff of Ward 21 – senior nurses, nursing assistants, student nurses and other ward personnel.

Pontificate if you like, Mr Morrell, about principles and ideals but please write another letter when you have been on the receiving end of being nursed in a hospital after a major operation when perhaps you can then speak from experience and not just from newspaper reports that you have read.

From: Mrs D Whitaker, Godfrey Road, Halifax.

I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with Terry Morrell’s letter on nursing care, and I am sure so would all my contempories coming from the days when, as Mr Morrell states, each ward was run by a Sister in charge, and, my goodness, some of them ruled with a ‘rod of iron’.

As a hospital visitor these days, some incidents I have observed would never have occurred under any circumstances.

We started by entering training school for three months, learning basic nursing care with an emphasis on the comfort and reassurance of the patient.

After three months, we were sent onto the wards.

Being the most junior nurse meant that our primary tasks on a daily routine were cleaning – checked afterwards by Sister – bedpan rounds and bed-making. We learned from our senior nurses as we went along, thereby growing in confidence and gaining experience.

Compared with today, we were very short-staffed and worked very hard and long hours.

I well remember one night being in charge – on my own – on a ward with 30 elderly patients.

Another nurse was sent up for one hour in the evening and in the morning to help me change the beds of incontinent patients; otherwise I was alone. That, in my opinion, is being short-staffed.

We didn’t have the technology they have now but practically everything was reusable, resulting in much washing and resterilising, cutting down costs.

If hospitals were still run like they used to be, I doubt very much if MRSA would be around at all.