I am now a nurse in a male remand prison and this is one of the most challenging jobs I have had in a long time, one of the biggest challenges I have faced is responding to how other people treat inmates.
Some of the patients have troubled backgrounds or complex history's, and my job is to care for them.
Don't get me wrong they are not all well behaved boys serving their time, but I believe everyone deserves a chance to change and all my lads are entitled to a bit of respect.
They all start out being treated the same way, I respect them if they respect me, we have ways to get them to behave and sometimes we do have to fill in reports or shut the hatch until the rabble calm down but I always try to give them benefit of the doubt, when someone is in pain they behave differently, if they are scared or upset, they might not remember to say please and thank you but that doesn't mean they are not greatful for what you do for them.
We have to remember where we are, nursing in a prison is a very specialised area of caring and you will always have challenges to overcome, I think for me it's about the person we need to give everyone of them a chance to be the person they can be.
My colleague told me I always try to find the good in every prisoner , I took that as a complement. I'm not naive , I know there are some people who I will never get to say please or thank you but when you walk down the cold corridors and one of the guys says hi miss how are you, it actually means a lot more than it sounds.
Sometimes we get specially requested, I don't want you miss I want that other nurse, that's an achievement too.
You can't accidentally go home with they keys either which is probably a good thing, although I'm not sure I want to be the one who sets off the security alarm because I forgot to return my set, it takes three times as long to get anywhere because of all the gates, and you have to learn to trust your instincts and wait until your told its safe before going and treating anyone, it is very difficult knowing someone is hurt or in pain and being on the wrong side of the door waiting....
When someone comes back to the nurses station after a particularly bad morning of abuse and says I'm sorry miss, you know then you have made a difference in that one lads life, prisoners are people too.
I finish with something one of my guys said to me recently
" we are not all bad people miss, we just did a bad thing"
Food for thought......
A true reflection of the life, times and trials of a Nurse working in today's NHS in criminal justice , and maybe just a hint of anything else I may feel is relevant.
Saturday 8 February 2014
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When God Created Nurses
When the Lord made Nurses He was into his sixth day of overtime.
An angel appeared and said, "You're doing a lot of fiddling around on this one." And the Lord said, "Have you read the specs on this order? A nurse has to be able to help an injured person, breathe life into a dying person, and give comfort to a family that has lost their only child and not wrinkle their uniform. They have to be able to lift 3 times their own weight, work 12 to 16 hours straight without missing a detail, console a grieving mother as they are doing CPR on a baby they know will never breathe again. They have to be in top mental condition at all times, running on too-little sleep, black coffee and half-eaten meals. And they have to have six pairs of hands.
The angel shook her head slowly and said, "Six pairs of hands...no way!" "It's not the hands that are causing me problems," said the Lord, "It's the two pairs of eyes a nurse has to have." "That's on the standard model?" asked the angel. The Lord nodded.
"One pair that does quick glances while making note of any physical changes, And another pair of eyes that can look reassuringly at a bleeding patient and say, "You'll be all right ma'am" when they know it isn't so."
"Lord," said the angel, touching his sleeve, "rest and work on this tomorrow." "I can't," said the Lord, "I already have a model that can talk to a 250 pound grieving family member whose child has been hit by a drunk driver...who, by the way, is laying in the next room uninjured, and feed a family of five on a nurse's paycheck."
The angel circled the model of the nurse very slowly, "Can it think?" she asked. "You bet," said the Lord. "It can tell you the symptoms of 100 illnesses; recite drug calculations in its sleep; intubate, defibrillate, medicate, and continue CPR nonstop until help arrives...and still it keeps its sense of humor. This nurse also has phenomenal personal control. They can deal with a multi-victim trauma, coax a frightened elderly person to unlock their door, comfort a murder victim's family, and then read in the daily paper how nurses are insensitive and uncaring and are only doing a job." Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek of the nurse.
"There's a leak," she pronounced. "I told you that you were trying to put too much into this model." "That's not a leak," said the Lord, "It's a tear." "What's the tear for?" asked the angel. "It's for bottled-up emotions, for patients they've tried in vain to save, for commitment to the hope that they will make a difference in a person's chance to survive, for life." "You're a genius," said the angel.
The Lord looked somber. "I didn't put it there," He said.