What Nurses Do Best

The internet is a beautiful thing, and, like all things, it is neither good nor bad. We make the internet good. We make the internet bad.

We, the people.

There is a post circulating in Facebook about a nurse in Hospital Kota Bharu who allegedly abused a newborn child. A picture is attached, showing a baby lying sideways toward one side of a cot, with blood splatters in an arch across the lower half of the cot. I shall not post the picture here, so you either have to search for the post yourself--shouldn't be hard, as the post is ALMOST viral--or you just have to visualize based on my scanty description. The description that comes with the picture alone is bad enough (toward the nurse). The comments, however, get worse with each share button. Not just nurses, but all public hospital staff are bad and dangerous.

There is a good reason why we forbid people from snapping pictures in the wards, you see. Not to hide what we do, but to prevent misunderstandings.

Of course I'd say this, you say. I'm a public hospital staff myself. Of course I want to defend myself and my work.

Not this time. If you're convinced I'm a jerk, there's no dissuading you. I can't be bothered, anyway. I do, however, want to protect the nurses. They are my colleagues, my friends, my family. And I'd do anything to protect my family.

First off, about the picture: I don't know the whole story myself, but judging from the baby's position and the pattern of the blood splatter, an intravenous line (branula) must have been dislodged due to movements and blood seeped out from the open wound. Happens to little children, happens to adults. Because, you see, this usually happens when the patients have no control over themselves. Precautions are taken, and sometimes they need restraining, but branulas get dislodged because we don't tie them onto the skin. We slide the branula in and then secure it with plasters that are gentle to the skin. Any alleged exchanges between the nurse and the person who took the picture...well, that's between them. That is their truth.

Let me tell you a different story (not fiction). This is my truth. Some years ago, some random visitor accidentally started a fire in our old elevator shaft. We didn't see any actual fire, but the smoke filled our half of the building. It was a weekend. I was oncall. I only realized there was a fire when smoke filled up my on-call room. I ran out to see the commotion, and my consultant, Dr Ramesh, was leading the nurses to evacuate the patients. Come to think of it, I don't recall any fire alarm. Huh.

Anyway. We couldn't find the source of the fire, but we opened up all the emergency exits and evacuated the patients. But you have to understand that we are the Neurosurgery department. Half of our patients were in no condition to even get out of the bed.

In the excitement, I belatedly realized that there were no screams. No one was panicking. The nurses carried the pediatric patients, supported the adult patients who could walk, and returned to their wards up to the second floor to repeat the process. No one was panicking.

But we also had a major problem: the patients in our ICU, HDW and the acute cubicle in the male ward were all ventilated. Some of them were in critical condition. They could not be moved. So the nurses taking care of them continued what they did best.

They took care of their patients.

Not one of them left their patients. Not a single person.

The nurses I work with often have to work double shifts because there aren't enough people. Some of them are well into their pregnancy, and they have to waddle. Not walk. Waddle. They expose their unborn child, they expose their loved ones at home, to airborne hospital superbugs, but still they take care of their patients. They bathe patients who cannot bathe themselves. They feed patients who cannot feed themselves. They comfort patients when their families are not around. They comfort families of patients who are dying and who have passed on.

They go home tired and trodden, yet still they make time for their family.

We sometimes forget this. In our anxiety having a family member in the hospital, we forget that nurses are also people, people who are overworked, overwhelmed, underpaid, and under-appreciated.

Despite everything, in spite of everything, they do what they do best: take care of patients.

I know I don't show my appreciation enough. I know that saying 'thank you' and 'great job' may not be anything more than a temporary high, but I will say it anyway.

Thank you.

Great job.

Keep up the excellent work.

Love always,
Fadz.