Thread by @hannahmillana

🧵What pushed me over the edge in the NHS today:

A v unwell pt needed an urgent echo today. I chased the report at 4pm and realised it hadn’t been done. A colleague asked the cardiology consultant if he wouldn’t mind doing it and he said he would if I got the machine from CCU

CCU said I could only have the machine if I would make sure it was back in the office before I left. The pt NEEDED the echo so of course I agreed. The lovely consultant did the echo at 5:20 (20 mins after my shift ended) then said he had another echo on another ward and would-

only be 15 mins. The echo was more tricky and the consultant didn’t bring the echo machine back till 6:30pm. I was already super tired and hungry after a ridiculously busy day so I hurried it back to CCU. When I got there the offices were shut and locked.-

I asked all the nurses if they knew the code to the door so I could leave it there and they said they couldn’t. After an already exceptionally stressful day I explained how I was told it was my responsibility to get it back to the unit before I left, and-

asked if there was any way I could leave it in the locked unused office overnight, then come in early tomorrow and bring it back to the unit. They said I was “shirking responsibility” and was “on my own”. I dragged the machine around for another half an hour trying to find-

someone who knew the code but no one did. So at 18:45 I called the bed managers to ask if they knew it and immediately burst into tears because I was stressed and tired and hungry and my poor dog was home alone!!!!!-

The lovely bed manager calmed me down and told me finally where I could find a disused closet to stash the machine in and she would personally return it tomorrow morning for me and vouch that I tried my best to return it.

It seems so pathetic in hindsight but my GOD it just feels like everything is such an uphill battle at the moment and no matter what good you try to do for patients it comes back to bite you. The fact that something objectively ridiculous has made me sob in my car should show-

how bloody STRESSED doctors are!!!! Why is everything so HARD!!!! I am so tired !! Patients are so sick !! All I can think about is how I’m back in tomorrow to do it all over again, and then on nights Fri-Sun with no break and no time to breathe.

I got home at 19:30, need to eat, shower, then sleep and repeat it all tomorrow. Show ! me ! the ! upside !

(the only upside actually is I got home to my #PayRestoration ballot 🙂)

I’ve obviously turned this over and over in my head cos I’m so embarrassed that such a ridiculously trivial thing has tipped me off the edge??? but I was SO stressed and all I could think about was how I didn’t have dinner ready and my dog was home alone-

and how it wasn’t a sick pt I was getting stressed over, but a locked door. But it’s just every ! day ! there’s another uphill battle to try and make sure patients are looked after safely. Nothing is ever straight forward, it’s like things are designed to be hard at the moment