I would not be where I am today without the compassion, dedication and guidance of nurses. I write this not as a patient, but a junior doctor.
For every heart-wrenching story I have to tell about my own experiences in hospital, there was a nurse stood right beside me. There was a nurse running with me to a cardiac arrest, who despaired with me as we alternated chest compressions to time. There was a nurse next to me who ran to fetch blood products needed to keep someone alive as they bled out because the porters would not have made it in time.
Nurses epitomise the goodwill that the NHS is run on. They laugh and cry with their patients. They will empty bed pans with one hand while fluffing pillows and blankets with the other. They will make their patients a cup of tea with one hand while dispensing life-saving medication with the other.
I recall being the general medical senior house officer on call during a busy night shift covering the wards. The day staff had long gone. I was called to speak to a patient as they were asking about a scan result that had not been available earlier in the day. Gravity weighed down on me as I read the report: a new suspicious lesion in her lung. Here I was, about to tell someone I had never met before that the course of her life would take a dramatic turn. The nurse and I waited until family were at hand before breaking the news.
A nurse stood with me holding the patient’s hand as I told her she had cancer. It was the nurse who hugged her, who cried with her. I stayed for as long as I was able, but a barrage of bleeps meant there were other patients to tend to, other emergencies. The weight of the encounter stayed with me for days to come. The nurse remained by her side, offering the comfort I was unable to provide. Nurses are the personal touch of the NHS, the human factor that doctors can never be.
I am in awe of nurses because I know that I, nor the vast majority of the public, could do their job. They do the dirty side of healthcare that we shove out of sight and out of mind. The cleaning of bed pans, washing of incontinent patients, and changing clothes soaked with vomit are only a few of the things they do on a daily (if not hourly) basis. They do this through gruelling 12-hour night shifts with no time for breaks, often getting punched, kicked, or spat on by confused or aggressive patients.
How much is their inherent caring worth? Nurses do not earn an astronomical salary. Starting at £21,692, their salary can go up to £28,180 after years of working. As a ward nurse, that’s it – that’s your salary. The majority of us would consider it a paltry sum for the emotional and physical turmoil that nurses endure. We thanked and encouraged our nurses by offering to pay their tuition fees and providing them with a small sum of money to help get through an intense three years, knowing full well that what we get in return far outstripped that value.
Removal of nursing student bursaries is the latest in the government’s string of attacks on the NHS. Nurses are already in a recruitment crisis. The number of nursing training places has dropped by 8,000 in the last four years. We are importing more and more nurses from abroad to try to plug these holes of our own making, a process that is inefficient and wasteful.
Most nurses I have met do not come from privileged backgrounds. They work hard and honestly to make ends meet. Is it fair to add in a student debt that they will never be able to pay off? How will this encourage more young compassionate people to go into nursing? How does that make nursing an attractive career prospect? We should be encouraging people to go into this caring profession, not penalising them. The government’s proposals will further compound a recruitment crisis, and we will become ever reliant on an imported workforce.
Thankfully, a nurse’s value is not measured in money. It is far more intangible. This does not, however, give the government license to force such savage cuts on the NHS.
I thank nurses for their self-sacrifice, but gratitude, in the face of such drastic cuts, is of little use. They dedicate their lives to caring for us. Please spare a moment to care for them. For the long-term safety of our patients, and the future of the NHS, remember that nurses are our lions; the pride of the NHS. Hear them roar.
There is a petition to keep the NHS bursary which can be found here.
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