A Nurse's Story - Essay Sample

Introduction

The healthcare system is the one service industry that runs every hour of the clock, one with busy corridors from dawn to dusk, 24-hour working schedules and the only place one can walk to at any time of day or night without the fear of finding a 'closed' sign on the door. Life is created and lost, patients check while others are checked out, a kidney is donated in one and transplanted in another, and all these activities create two conflicting worlds for the healthcare providers. A majority, if not all of the health workers are on payrolls and pensions but the emotional burden and the delicate nature of their work, with lives on the line, costs them a fortune.

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"Do you think you're paid what you're worth (Baida 2008, p.568)?" on its outer anatomical perception, this is a simple question, but within it lies the dissatisfaction and demotivation of nurses who work from shift to shift, wiping wound surfaces, dressing up wounds and running errands for doctors and all the other staff above them. These nurses are expected to babysit the patients, administer their drugs at the right time, and monitor their progress health-wise, from the blood pressure to the observable characters. The pressure of running up and down, answering to the patient's calls and the routine checkups wear them out, and the least they could want back was a reasonable pay, to massage those tired muscles.

Waiting outside the infirmary to consult a doctor for twenty minutes, and people start fidgeting, and name-calling and others even make sure they have literary dropped a massive complaint at the suggestion boxes. Inside the consultations, emergency rooms or treatment rooms, these one nurse has to attend to twenty patients an in a way still allocate time for the other unplanned for occurrences. Many of them take their breaks only when visiting the washrooms, and it's the only place they can yell out, "They're driving me crazy. They're running me off my feet (Baida 2008, p.575)." They literary hold their patients' lives in their hands, and they are not expected to make life-threatening mistakes, and well, around the hospital environment, every single error, however pesky, can so easily claim a life.

Who stands up for these nurses when they are always so busy standing up for their patients? So they decide to speak for themselves through legal and systemized unions, but by holding these shield, they get even more exposed to victimization and career-ending threats. It is so hard for them to find a Mary, who can persistently endure the scorching sun, and the numbing cold, to advocate for their rights, financial stability, and favorable working conditions. Sometimes it is not about them. "...But we also got something we wanted for our patients...More staff on the medical and surgical floor (Baida 2008, p.584)." This must be the only noble job with a minimum wage.

They wash the feet of their patients, nourish their hearts with messages of hope, and offer companionship to the abandoned old patients. But when it comes to their emotional needs, when they feel they have failed, when the friend they visited daily in a room suddenly dies before their eyes, with blood oozing all over their cavities, they are expected to keep it together. Mary's grandmother dies, and on her deathbed, she demands her nurse, Clarice. She passes away at three, moments after she arrives, and during the day Clarice works her shift (Baida 2008, p.574). There is more to it that their duties as per the Hippocratic Oath, and these men and women need to be viewed as human beings even when in their white coats.

References

Baida Peter (2008). A nurse's story: imagine what it's like. University of Hawaii Press. Pp. 568-590.