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We are all exhausted

We are all exhausted. We are handling more patients more than what we can cope with. And this affects the care and safety that we provide. I feel so bad because I know my work is becoming riskier at the expense of my patients’ lives and my health.

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I had to decide between whether I had breakfast or lunch because I couldn’t afford both. That was the final straw.

My last shift in A&E before I decided to quit was like a warzone. I was the only nurse triaging around 40 people. Every available bed had someone in it either coughing, vomiting, pissing themselves, incapacitated or all of the above. The smell in the waiting room was vile and the humidity felt like a […]

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We got not as much as a thank you

There have been times where i’ve had to work 7 night shifts in A&E because we are so understaffed. By the third night you are a zombie. I remember one night, a man rushed in with his arm essentially hanging off. He was abusive through the entire experience and we got not as much as […]

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Things were so bad on one shift that every bed was taken and I had to declare a patient dead on the waiting room floor in front of his wife and every single person that was waiting to be seen.

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Every day I think about quitting

I’ve lost so many colleagues in the last three years with most moving to Canada or Australia, some quitting the profession altogether and one that had taken their own life, all because of the mental toll that comes with trying to save lives. I found out that particular colleague had taken their own life on […]

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Just another day…

On one shift in A&E, a group of men in balaclavas burst into the waiting room armed with machetes and carrying another man covered in blood. They were screaming and shouting for help whilst also threatening us and I just froze.

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A patient’s relative pinned me against the wall by my neck when I told him that he couldn’t be in the room while doctors tried to resuscitate the patient

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I couldn’t take it anymore and had to hide in an office to cry

I remember in the height of COVID we would talk to patients who looked and seemed fine, then 24 hours later they would have to be intubated, clinging on for life. After days of intubating patients and watching them die merely hours later, I couldn’t take it anymore and had to hide in an office […]

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It takes a special kind of person to be able to keep going in this profession

This story is still pretty raw as it only happened a few months ago, but it’s one of many similar stories that are happening all over the UK. I reviewed a man in his mid-30’s that was complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath. He was clearly very worried about his condition and told […]

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I confirmed he didn’t have a pulse. Then I cried.

One patient stands out to me. It was only my 4th shift when a gentleman came in with COVID and was quite unwell. He was frail and was deemed not for escalation to ICU due to his co-morbidities which included cancer. We met him in the morning during the ward round and he was in […]