Sunday

 It’s a grey morning, and wet.
Even though is almost summer, it feels like Autumn.
It feels like a back-to-school day.
I’m not making my bucket of coffee this morning. I will buy some on the drive through as a treat.
I’m working with new bank staff today.
We are short staffed again
Healthcare feels as though it’s gone tits up following the pandemic 
I was talking to Nu about it yesterday 
So many nurses have left, retired, resigned, moved on….burnt out and tired.
She worked in the big teaching hospitals in London
She knows.

Dorothy knows I’m going to work and is unhappy .
Thank god for Ewan ( Trendy Carol’s hubby) who will be collecting them soon.
Dorothy loves him too


37 comments:

  1. Just to be political for a moment, it makes my blood boil when the excuses for Partygate were that everyone at Number 10 was working so hard, they needed to let their hair down. They weren't working in full PPE, for 12+ hours at a time, trying and far too often failing to save lives, sometimes living away from family to protect them. It's no wonder many are leaving, there's only so much a person can take. End of rant!
    I'm sure Dorothy will have a good time with Ewan and Trendy Carol, she just wants to guilt-trip you! xx

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  2. My son and his fiancé work in the NHS and despite still being in their 20s they're both jaded and burning out due to staff shortages. It's the same in Education. My school lost 2 teachers last year who'd simply had enough. It's the whole 'everything's back to normal' attitude from management that's scary. Nope, it's going to take years for normality to return and all our public services have been badly damaged.

    Glad you had a nice date even if there was no spark! xxx

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  3. It’s good Dorothy is such a lover. Still so difficult to get medical appointments here due to staffing shortages.

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  4. Hi, I've never commented before but what you said today really resonated with me. I'm a pharmacist working in community pharmacy and we too are under unbearable pressure due to staff and medication shortages, aggressive customers and cuts in funding from the department of health. I know everyone else working in healthcare is under massive stress as well. When you wrote 'healthcare feels as though it's gone tits up since the pandemic' that put into words exactly how I feel! I don't know what the answer is but I hope the government listen to frontline staff rather than management as they will know best what is going wrong and how to fix it.

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    1. Welcome dear Katie ….I’ve had some great support from pharmacy recently , staff that have gone out of their way to help

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  5. Throughout my Public Health and university work I've maintained my nurse registration. The last time I used it was for a part-time role a few years ago - thinking it would be good to 'give back' at the end of my career. Getting up at 5. 30 and getting home after 12 hours after 9pm was exhausting. I managed to sort my revalidation last year, but having recently turned 60, I may pay my registration fees this year as a 'just in case' but won't be revalidation again. As you say John, "So many nurses have left, retired, resigned, moved on….burnt out and tired" . Back in the 80s when I trained, we had a 'hands-on' training system for student nurses that worked and a bursary system that paid a wage you could get by on. Government of both hues have meddled, making it harder for UK people to train and creating a system where wards are staffed by nurses from elsewhere - whom I have the highest praise for and have met some lovely people, but it's a clear cost-cutting exercise - ie 'we don't have to pay to train them' and with events such as Brexit with staff leaving and who-knows-what events in future, there really should be a rethink on the value we place on care jobs, rather than our system of paying the highest wages to people who make money. A sad reflection on how our society really works...hey ho.

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    1. You make several valid points P .
      The pandemic , for many was the last straw
      Nursing in some areas was no better than wartime conditions ....and in was time PTSD is recognized

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  6. The 12 hour shifts would kill me, and they are common here in the USA. Take care of yourself.

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    1. Americans work ethic always astounded me when I worked over there. So many nurses would pull extra shifts in other specialties on their days off ..
      And don't get me started on their holiday allowance

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  7. I am wondering how long it will take so many occupations to recover from the pandemic. Everyone I know has been affected. Never would have imagined this 3 years ago. Workers in every industry burning the candle at both ends.

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    1. Good point Linda. I am guilty of seeing things only from A Nurse perspective

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  8. Only people in healthcare understand how truly hard it is. I listen to the young ones who are recently qualified moaning and think about my 30 + years, and how me and my veteran colleagues are bone tired, but too poor to give up.

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    1. I am lucky here poppy with my 3 to 1 ratio of patients to nurse...I have to remember that

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  9. Nurses here are the same- quitting in droves because they just can't handle it anymore. My daughter, who works as a nurse, is stretched way too thin on her shifts as staffing is so poor. It's not safe for the patients. No nurse can give the care that's needed in circumstances like that.
    It must be so hard for you to leave your cozy cottage in dreary weather.

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  10. We are in a similar situation here, in Canada. Our local hospital stopped emergency services after 7:00 p.m. until morning for an entire year due to short staff issues. Carol and her husband sound like the perfect dog sitters! -Jenn

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  11. I wish i lived near enough to have Dorothy sometimes.

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  12. I am in awe of the commitment nursing staff has, especially carrying on thru out this pestilence.
    Speaking of summer..I live in Florida..it is summer year round, except when it is hell summer, which is due anyway.
    And politicians...there is nothing left to say.
    And no I do not own a gun. Lord help us all.
    My sister is much like your pup Dorothy, I continually remind her not to stare, and be careful who you speak to, she doesn't understand.

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    1. You do have hurricanes too I’ve seen key largo

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  13. Barbara Anne5:14 pm

    Love the potten plant in the foreground of your photo with sweet Dorothy in the background.
    Is Nu also a nurse?
    Wishing you and the new staff well today and in future.
    Safe journey home ...

    Hugs!

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    1. It was an early birthday gift from Mrs trellis

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  14. I feel the anticipation of part time building. Dorothy won't know what to do with you. :)

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  15. Anonymous5:46 pm

    yadda yadda yadda
    Nurses are not saints, they get paid a fair wage.
    covid hit many jobs and lives .

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    1. Come work a shift in full PPE and then be spit on by anti-vaxxers after your shift.

      Then tell me I get paid a fair wage.

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    2. I remember saying to my soon ex husband that I was tired at going to work ( in ppe)
      He told me that he knew lots of people my age that weren’t tired and feeling old
      They never wore ppe for 12 hours straight

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  16. You would think that if they see many people leaving, they would address that problem(s)....but being underfunded..and that must be political...one despairs

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    1. Filipino nurses are being poached from a country that needs them

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  17. 26 calendar months and I can throw out my scrubs. I'm tired, underpaid, and overworked. My health system is a joke with a Conservative government trying to privatize everything.

    I've been wearing a mask all shift since March 2020 and have patients moaning that they have to wear one for two whole hours during their appointment.

    I try to see the good in people but I'm done.

    Nursing isn't a calling, it's a form of slavery and legalized abuse.

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    1. I hear u.
      It sounds like you’ve had it very rough , rougher than me
      I’m sorry x

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  18. Staff shortages are universal. Here we can't find a Plumber, Electrician, or Gardener. People prefer to sit around and do nothing. Legally employing someone is a nightmare in France, and can cost the same again as their salary. No employment no taxes, just handing out money. Politicians need to re-think.

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  19. There is no way on earth I could be a nurse; all weekends and evenings and overnights for very little pay and even less kudos.. It is not my calling. I love people so do community support work and that suits my temperament. I think nurses should be paid at least double what they are paid and should not have to do back to back shifts or 12 hour days and there should be a lot more of them; and treated with the respect they deserve. But we all know it will never happen very sadly. No wonder the angels are leaving in droves.

    Jo in Auckland

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  20. I recall when I was providing tx in hospitals and other rehab settings years ago a decade or so before Covid, nursing understaffing here in U.S. Our profession had shortages but nothing like nursing. I can appreciate what all experienced in these years since, after I ceased working. Sounds really challenging where you are.

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  21. I feel like Covid knocked the whole world off its axis and it's just taking us a while to right ourselves. Hopefully we eventually will!

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  22. Anonymous8:58 pm

    I have been reading you for years but am not a commenter, but this resonates with me today. Both of my nursing daughters worked through the pandemic. My oldest told me last week - as she was recovering from her 4th bout of covid in the run up to her wedding- that when she goes to bed at night she sees a rolling screen of the faces of her patients who died....for hours sometimes.

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