UKH

A bedtime story from the coal face.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/ambula...

I'm guessing stuff like this goes on all over the UK no matter the occupation.

We're a knackered and exhausted nation.

Thanks, really interesting and alarming to see the real increase in serious cases. A real shame that MEN decided to go with a disingenuous sub-headline that might put people off from reading the article 

Tbf I think it's especially bad in many parts of the NHS, where chronic understaffing, lack of resources, and poor planning over many many years have created a service which just can't cope with the level of demand and of course the people working on those environments will be put under a huge amount of pressure.

A silver lining for ambulance staff though is that at least they only have one patient to deal with at once (apart from the ones sometimes deployed to watch patients queued up from ambulances before they are admitted), so are only overworked in terms of missed breaks etc. Nurses pressured into working on understaffed wards for example face being responsible for large numbers of patients all at once and not being in a position to look after any of them as well as they'd like, all the while worrying that if something goes wrong they'll be the ones on the hook. Or, to pick a less popular example, mid level hospital management staff who can have massive workloads piled on them and are put under a huge amount of stress, even if that stress may have different qualities to that which frontline staff face.

I'm not sure many other workplaces are quite like the NHS in this regard though.

The grass is always browner? 

My mate's  daughter trained as as staff nurse. The week she qualified, she was given an entire ward to deal with alone.

I've also seen Sisters with 20+ years under their belts, on the A&E ward, break down in tears in public at the sheer magnitude of work in front of them.

I also have a personal story of my time on an A&E corridor, which if retold would get me in serious trouble. Not because of my actions but what I witnessed due to volume of impossible work placed on the nurses. Strangely enough, the doctors never look stressed.

No idea why people have downvoted me lol but whatever

You didn't get a down vote from me but you've perhaps overlooked the triage element with the ambulance services. Once call volume is high crews end up attending a far greater volume of more serious cases with far less back up available. 

If you end up attending someone who is actively dying before your eyes with no back up then it's just you in the back dealing with that while your mate drives like hell. No crash team round the corner, no reassuringly experienced consultant's watchful eye over your shoulder. Just you. Do a couple of those on the bounce and it gets wearing. Three or four in a block and you can end up feeling pretty damned battered. 

I'm sure it's similar in other areas of the NHS but you've usually got the support of the team around you who've seen and been through the exact same thing with you. Not so if you're alone in the back of a truck.

I've said this before to Lemming and perhaps he will forgive me repeating myself so as to say it to you: I remember the ambulance crew who got me and my dying baby to hospital, many years ago, and their calm kindness which kept me in one piece even though they knew what was happening and what was going to happen. You are heroes, and your skill and compassion is astonishing.

I do remember you saying kind words about me in the past. However please forgive me as I did not know the circumstances of why you needed an ambulance.

I can not even comprehend your pain,grief and loss other than to say that I have sadly been in the back of an ambulance watching parents go through the same horrific events.

This is the worst job I've ever attended. https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/girl-15-secretly-gave-birth-201...

Bless you, I just wanted to express appreciation to Stitchplate and, again, to you. You all do a fantastic job and I am horrified by the stress and pressure you are coping with. I hope there will come a day before long when your job becomes less of a constant crisis.

(Edited for spelling.)

Thank you.

I'm just grateful to have a job in these challenging times.

I can finish my shift, have the luxury of not taking my work home, have a means to pay my bills and a roof over my head.

The same can't be said for the poor souls that I attend or for the more disadvantaged people all around us who do not have a stable home or a regular income. I'm just plodding through life like everybody else on these forums.

BTW, most of the day I'm having a good time at work shooting the breeze with my workmates. I could not ask for any more. 😀

Totally agree with the sentiment if not the actual reality. A few Christmas's ago the Mrs and me were looking at swapping all the doors in our home (a mismatched and badly hung set, presumably put in by the previous owner). We'd finally decided on a particular oak model from B&Q and were due to go and order them when I'd finished my block of shifts.  Then the last shift of the block came round and included a very harrowing job where, weirdly, the model of door we'd picked had played a major role. 

Couple of years down the line and we still haven't swapped our doors.