Doing something worthwhile (1974)

come on way to please Rosemary lock is a state enrolled nurse applying her skills and training in this special baby care unit but that's only a small part of her life she's also a housewife and mother to three schoolage children after qualifying she left nursing to marry and have her family now she's back Rosemary lock has turn to nursing the need for trained nursing staff is greater than ever the demands are such that today there is a place for those who want to pick up the threads of an earlier career come back to nursing is an honest Playa part-time nurses can be a especially useful in uh places where you may work on a sessional basis and somebody says um oh I can work from 9 to 12 and then if you really look at it and discuss it with her or him show them the department you might find that they could come in from 8:30 to 12:30 and do a morning session the night patients or a morning session in accident in emergency little bit of give a little bit of take so so what exactly is the giving and taking what are the problems and fears of the nurse who wants to come back how did Helen Lockwood Coke as a mother of two girls she'd been away from hospital life for seven years like so many others it wasn't easy at first really started with the advertisement in the paper and this gave me the idea that I'd go along just for the fresh of course and um it really went on from there J please well the first morning was plucking out the courage to actually walk onto the ward you know but once I got on there actually it didn't feel as if I'd I'd been there very long you were fine actually it's accidental circumstances maybe but obviously we both worried about going back when you went back right but one Hela came home that night and said that within a fairly short while of being on the ward she was um given something to do and she'd done it I knew it was all right okay there we are I didn't really think that the hours would fit in at one point you know um because I can't work during the school holidays but this hasn't been a problem I just work during the ter times eileene melow had to reorganize her daily routine when she finally decided to return to nursing on a part-time basis as a registered mental nurse she went back to the psychiatric hospital where she had trained years earlier for her one day starts much like another I leave home about4 to 9 to take the nette to school and then after I've dropped lyette off at school I bring Carl along to the nursery and then he goes in and then I go along to the ward then then it's time for J you to just get changed and then it's time to report to everyone is in charge of the ward I start work card today doing a lot better yeah someone led the cardigan for you yeah just put your arm back in here I think when I found that was having so much time on my hands and I was feeling a bit lonely at home sometimes in the afternoons and that sometimes some lot of the people around where I live were at work then and I thought I'd like to go back again cuz I enjoyed while I was working had some happy years here at the hospital we want people with a lot of Personality that are kind and understanding and like working with people and being with people I think this is really what we're looking for I mean this is why we we when our young nurses who go off and get married and have their families um we try and keep in contact so we can encourage them to come back the changes in hospital life can sometimes seem more frightening than they really are Moren Harvey who has three children all under 10 found that out when she went back to day shift work on a day stay ward in a modern hospital the gap for her was 7even years I thought having to put a staff nur's uniform on you know they might expect me to know something and I was certain I'd forgotten everything but in actual fact I hadn't and everyone was very helpful as well if I had forgotten anything or anything was new and I didn't didn't know about it nobody sort of made me feel in any way incompetent everyone was just very helpful really there's so many patients that just need the one day in hospital and or just come in for some treatment or come in for a one day operation and can go home that evening you know nursing is a thing you get in your blood and the number of people who have said to me that they have missed it and they wanted to come back and indeed husbands have said to me that uh you know it's something that gets in the blood and uh their wives talk about nursing and talk about the days when they were in hospital and about their patients and they remember patients uh for whom they feel they've done something that was good and it pulls them back it's it's a need I think there have been many changes no one can deny that but those changes have been made made to improve patient care and relieve nurses from some of the timec consuming chores the advantages of a central sterilizing Supply Department are just one modern Advance it saves all that bedside boiling just skin is it yeah it's but the duck and apprehensions about returning can never be cast aside until the nurse is back on the ward the frightening Prospect of facing a whole new range of drugs is not so nerve-wracking when the time comes nothing for him today we just do the two in the other room now Mr Ken you got any pain no we'll just give you your other tablet wasn't really all that much of a change it's just new drugs and one or two different techniques we are Lucy come your tablets please I think when they see they may well be worried about how modern advancers has removed them from what is happening today but then when they do go along and see that other people are coping and when they understand that they're not going to be pushed in at the deep end and expected to swim without any lessons they they they get interested and and and excited how are you feeling today a bit tired a bit tired still sister's office and you can always hold um not necessarily come back to nursing classes but almost social evenings uh within your teaching department or or within some of the accommodation of your hospital and show them um modern things we have arranged this program and we hope that it is going to be interesting and enjoyable but besides the interest and the enjoyment that this program we hope will produce we hope that you will be stimulated to want to return to the nursing profession and not going back to work as a nurse is often treated as a gradual process return many hospitals organize refresher courses for returning part-time staff special talks and basic instruction on new techniques will be held on two evenings a week for a 3mon period and you do this with your fist like this it's the one like this now if the patient has gone into ventricular fibrillation which is this um sort of quiv of the ventricles I I would say that one's doing a little bit of teaching but uh because uh if they have ever have ever had a mind which is educated in nursing they will look and be educated by what they see in a new procedure and it's a it's a mixture of teaching and holding a carrot in front of their nose come along talk it over and try your hand at some of the newer skills that's the policy and it clearly works dates and details of return to nursing courses will often be advertised in the local newspaper and on that first evening the senior nursing staff are prepared to answer a whole variety of questions do we still have to mop flaw we haven't completely overcome the mopping of the floor because the blood still somehow sort drips down from the table but of course we have got technical staff um I don't say that nursing staff never mop the floor because there is rather a lot of activity between cases uh nowadays of course there so many new hospitals going up and even old hospitals having uh their departments refurbished and and brought up to date there's quite a lot of things to be excited about and it it's a bit like the warhorse you know just let them smell a little bit of the the atmosphere of teamwork and and being part of a team that's really doing something and they want to come back but hospitals offer only one opportunity for the returning nurse June elik chose Community work when she came back after a 15-year break she finds that combining her health visiting duties and looking after a family of three children presents few problems well in this type of work you have to plan your own day you we don't have anyone um telling you what to do or asking you to do things apart from you know the doctors will ask us to go and visit various patients and we will do so on their behalf but once we see the patient um we make our own decisions particularly in with regard to any social need or any need that they may have I mean obviously the doctor is going to give medical advice but there may be other problems in the household um you know which perhaps the the patients may require home help Meals on Wheels they may require other services hello M the twins fine come on in sit down they look very much better don't they made it on well I think the fact that one has um perhaps brought up small children one um you know would have met your health visitor you would have known um something about the services you meet other mothers you you know their problems then I mean it can be very lonely for a girl I think having a baby and and being at home and often it's only those who've actually been in this situation themselves can understand how other mothers feel they're still taking their antibi apart from the need for nurses who have already qualified and wish to come back to nursing there are also many opportunities for older women who have no qualifications whatsoever but have the time and ambition to train as nurses Sheila Buckley is a good example apart from working as a ward auxiliary she has no experience but that was a start and from that moment she was set on a new career at first I I found it terrifying quite honestly yes I did but as the weeks have gone by it's become easier it's true what they say it is true that it does become easy you know if you just relax you have got to like it you know you've got to want to do it I think this is the main thing when you get past 40 the old gry matter starts slowing up and the studing side of it rather worried me so I decided to do pupil nursing and I thought at my age I'd be well over the top I was amazed when I was accepted really when I went along for the interview it was so relaxed and they didn't make me feel that I was as old as I felt I was you know and said it was quite a right I think the first month in school it's all sort of thrust upon you and you think you know am I going to be able to do it but you get such help from the tutors they're very helpful and um they say to you well it will click into place in time you don't believe them of course you think my God it won't it's all too much but you find as each week goes by it does something you think you would never would be able to do it does get easy pupil nursing is only a 2-year training period compared to three for the student who goes on to become an srn in those two years years more time will be spent on the wards one of the reasons why Barbara Bonnie chose to be a state enrolled nurse for her it also meant a change of attitude she no longer has that fear and suspicion of mental health psychiatric patients respond to care and understanding and that's what she has to offer I've been on my own 12 years with the children and I thought well I've had nearly every problem you know and I've sort of got over it i' be a to sympathize i' I'd know what people were talking about more where is it twos and threes do you want twos and threes my brother's not been in it's visiting today and he's not being we'll be when when my fingers are so not there up there little bit lat be all right I come and see go see if it's coming in okay every every week he comes and he always never we're going have down the passage he's over there I was a bit F speaking to them you know you don't know what reaction you're going to get or whether you will get any reaction that comes with experience I think really you know let's know talks them on H thank to see a bit better now I think thank you very much I feel more satisfied with life now although I work harder and longer than I've ever done in my life I feel I feel good I feel as I'm doing something worthwhile with myself now are she hand on that table okay there you done it done very well psychiatric nursing is changing very much and I think there is no doubt that psychiatric Nur of the future will or they are now a very important part of the team and I think this developing the nurse as a therapist you know I think will will come uh because they are really therapist and many people think perhaps they shouldn't be called psychiatric nurses because of this sort of very social relationship with with patients you think oils yes oh that's lovely yeah that Sunshine there see sh you put in anything else in the picture I'm going to put I don't know I think everyone has a faar of a psychiatric hospital because they don't know it we see films about it people climb up the walls and CH their hair out and all this that FR you before you come in I think it's up to us really in the profession to to try and get the image of psychiatric hospitals and PSY iatric nurses across and it it will take a long time I think the the public image of psychiatric hospital is isn't good this is why I feel that the more general public we can bring into psychiatric hospitals on open days or other things the better so that people at least will will say well it's not like you think and it's just interesting often when people come into a psychiatric hospital for the first time that it's a a totally different environment to what they thought it was it is ignorance but I'm sure it will take a long time I think it's the the fear of mental illness I think is very deep in all of us the older woman training to become a state enrolled nurse is encouraged quickly to become part of the hospital team she's likely to be married with a grown-up family and that makes a difference experience will have given her a better understanding of people colleagues as well as patients in that way she's an asset to everybody especially the younger nurses oh they bring uh I think a breath of vision that the because life has given them very much more experience than the average 18yar old coming into nursing uh they very often bring a humor and a tolerance and an understanding not only to their patients but to the other uh their classmates their colleagues of of the age of their family and I know that many many women say how could I possibly join a class of uh girls on young men who are the same age as my family I thought I might feel a fool I think you know not knowing anything and working with young girls and boys that have been here for a couple of years the cadat that been coming at 16 I got I'm great with them all so I've confid in me make me feel older you know but it's a good feeling there will always be a need for a nurse with skill and experience so why lose her when she has so much to offer many clearly want to come back and are now being encouraged to do so the difficulties surrounding ours and family responsibilities are being accepted and discussed because a part-time nurse is better than none at all in a busy hospital and for the older woman there's now the attraction of a late career a chance to do what she always wanted to be a nurse for anyone it's a big challenge but there's a vital job to do for those that are accept come on Elsa the patient turnover the demands that are being made upon a hospital in this day and age are not getting less they're getting more and although we are uh training more and more nurses also it is now acceptable that one marries and has a life outside and one is just not going to meet one's commitments or a be able to care for one's patience if one doesn't make make as much use of part-time staff as one possibly can it's a shocking waste that you train people train nurses they and they're good and they're finding enjoyment in their work and obviously giving something that's worthwhile to the community and then just because they're married you lose it all a