In International Support

[madshutterbug]

The link on the Google page is headed with 'Reuter's Oddly Enough', but to me this is not Odd at all. It's something much in need in the place and time:

China Provides Embattled Nurses with Bill of Rights ... link should open in a new window.

Comments

[fatfred.livejournal.com]

Some areas of China got modernised way too fast for the locals to catch up.
Supression of information while Red didn't help in the least.

[madshutterbug.livejournal.com]

That may very well be involved. The issue is not confined to China; it is international in scope, and the U.S. is not immune. The entire world is facing a shortage of Registered Nurses to provide care, and one of the reasons is the manner in which nurses may be treated in the workplace. Even with the U.S. not being immune, conditions here are measurably better than many countries, including not only this but pay rates. So many nurses from other countries come here to work, which only exacerbates the nursing shortage in their homelands.

Nursing as a profession is learning how to cope with the major changes in gender-related role expectations (women who work can be either teachers or nurses, to women can do anything {which results in fewer women entering the previously major professions open to them and thus fewer nurses}...). Violence against nurses is not the only problem. It is one of the biggest ones.

[jehannamama.livejournal.com]

Wow... and I thought I had it rough working the floor when we had lots of DT patients admitted!

It certainly is not odd, but something long needed!

Mao destroyed so much that was beautiful and good about China. Repression of knowledge is a bad thing...

Which could get me going into a reprisal of my discussion with Ronnie about how "No Child Left Behind" worked by dumbing-down educational expectations, holding all of the children back to the functioning of the least able, and destroyed the school systems in the USA.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I'm in favor of such a Bill of Rights.

However, because I'm also one to immediately look at edge cases, I hope that "impeding a nurse in the performance of his/her duties" will not be used to criminally charge people who are in an altered state of consciousness due to pain, shock, trauma, mental illness, etc. and are therefore flailing or uncommunicative or whatever.

[madshutterbug.livejournal.com]

I truly can not speak to the actuality of this happening in another country. I can to it happening here, and Nurses in particular and Health Care in general are very aware of the differences in behaviour due to health status, and behaviour which comes from another source. Still, as an object lesson from personal experience, one surgeon's abusive behaviour in the surgical theatre, brought to consideration by complaints by the nurses subjected to this behaviour, also brought to light that part of the cause of the behaviour was a previously undiagnosed health condition.

The differences once that condition came under control are remarkable. Would this be diagnosed as soon as it was were the environment one which held to the attitude, 'They're just nurses, they're supposed to be abused?'

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Valid points. And I certainly didn't mean to suggest that I thought nurses (or anyone!) should just expect to be abused, or just accept it.

[madshutterbug.livejournal.com]

Nor did I think you were suggesting that. As Nurses, we are often rated in public opinion polls (conducted by educational institutions, government agencies, and even Gallup) as trusted and respected. There is only one year in which Registered Nurses did not come in first place in most of these polls, which was 2001 when firefighters topped us out.

We also may be the first ones to face frustration and anger on the part of patients and/or family (not really much difference in such situations) related either to the experience in the 'System' itself, or with an unpleasant (undesirable/unexpected) outcome. We take that as a given, and learning how to deal with it is, or should be, a component of nursing education. We do not take as a given that abusive expression of such anger is justifiable, which is why being able to tell the difference between such abuse, and health care condition induced behaviour, is as important as you state.

[wedschilde.livejournal.com]

snookies.

just snookies.

[madshutterbug.livejournal.com]

Snookies are always welcome. And definitely not abuse! *G*

[lolleeroberts.livejournal.com]

Thank you for an article I'll be printing out and sharing with my students. I find articles like this to be good discussion fodder, since my students are already LVNs and paramedics and thus aware of some of the realities of the workplace.

Much to think about here. We are seeing an increase in applications for admission to nursing schools, but the people who are coming for the money are frequently very ill suited for the job.

[madshutterbug.livejournal.com]

I've forwarded it to my sister as well, for much the same reasons.

Yes, it's nice to know that our pay improved (even notably during my tenure in the Profession), even improved enough to attract recruits for that reason. There is that small little detail, though, that even learning to think like a nurse isn't all of it. One needs that spark of empathy and compassion which tempers the scientific aspects into the art of the practice.

And, In Fact, Here's Her Response

[madshutterbug.livejournal.com]

"The article is very interesting and as you said we are not immune here in the US. It is unfortunate that when we now teach non-violent crisis intervention we teach it so that nurses and student nurses can protect themselves from family as well as patients in altered mental states.

Don’t forget to add the point that the nurse educators are aging and within the next 10 years there will be a mass exodus due to retirement."

And without Nurse Educators, who's gonna teach the next generation of Nurses?

I know, I'm preaching to the choir.