Hospital wards 'too noisy at night', say nurses

Status
Not open for further replies.
Northerner

Northerner

Admin (Retired)
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Hospitals need to do more to ensure patients get a good night's sleep, nurses say.

Delegates at the Royal College of Nursing conference said a combination of thoughtlessness and badly run wards were keeping patients awake.

They called for an end to patients being moved at night, which was causing unnecessary disturbances.

But they also admitted they had to be more considerate themselves, during a debate at the meeting in Liverpool.

Hospital nurse Debbie Simmonds, from Suffolk, said a combination of alarms going off, conversations between staff, telephones and even squeaky shoes was disturbing patients' sleep.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-27874905

I don't think I really slept at all during the 8 days I was in hospital at diagnosis. I was in 7 beds in 8 days (half of those were in the first 24 hours! 😱)
 
Try my local hospital, you would think some of the nurses were at a football match the amount of noise they make on some wards.

The bed move is a right pain, Some paients need to be in eye view of the nurses station hence the moves, but one does wonder about the number of moves. Even put in a complaint about several things and they did say they need to look at the number of times peoplevare moved.
 
Im with you on this northerner when I got DKA just under 2 years ago i got no sleep due to alarms, conversation of nurses, lights being turned on and off. When I had my back operation 2 weeks ago i paid to have treatment privately as the NhS waiting list was so long this cost me 12k MRI injections in spine and finally a discectomy part removal and shaving of the l4/5 to stop nerve pain and even my consultant said i would be better off at home the following day to recover and he was right. Nurses tested my BMs every 2 hours before and after op because i was on a sliding scale and noise and lights etc i had excellent care just sleep depravation is in itself exhausting and stressful. Slept good at home, new woman
 
Oh God - I had a hysterectomy privately with BUPA.

About the third morning I was so tired I cried. Woman who was completely Gaga had come in for an emergency appendectomy, she just made strange noises day and night across the corridor. Next to her was a 70yo deaf as a post lovely woman actually, but had both knees done at once, and clearly in pain, without her hearing aids at night so don't suppose she would know how loud she was .......

So they moved me right down the other end - now Droitwich BUPA had the knee clinic as a specialism. So it was mainly strapping young men coming in to have keyhole on their ligaments or whatever. But By God, I should think every bed creaked. I spotted the Knee Man coming down the corridor the one day and waylaid him. Said I want to know what you are doing to these young men. I watch em come into the hospital, some are limping to be fair - but by the time you've finished with em - they are either in wheelchairs or on crutches! and I demand an explanation!

Sadly he didn't seem to have a sense of humour .......

But anyway they'd all buggered off home by teatime so I had lovely sleep after that!
 
Yes I had fun for my two week stay in January, I don't remember high dependency obviously but I was moved to the T1 diabetic ward (three individual rooms) for ten minutes before they noticed that my potassium was in my boots and whisked me off to cardiology (via a one hour stint stuck in a lift, thank god I was in a bed 😱). The main cardiology was full, so I went to geriatric cardiology with one lady who was suffering from dementia and randomly screamed during the night, a German lady who'd lived here for years but was having an issue that caused her to speak in German and was very confused when nobody understood, a lady who snored like a freight train and a woman on Oxygen who made a noise like Hannibal lector. I didn't sleep a wink, so I had my little light on trying to read and one of the nurses told me off because I might disturb the other ladies. No chance of that they all slept very well, even the screamer who would open fire then be snoring 2 minutes later. Between all that and my alarms going off every five minutes it was great. They also need to sort out those beds, I'm very slender but I am six foot and broad and I couldn't lie down because it was too short or keep my arms flat because it was too narrow 😡
 
Kookycat reading your story i wonder if potassium levels fall because we have D! In my recent stay my potassium levels low and they said it can affect the heart i was giving tablets like a big dissolvable aspirin and told to eat bananas but of course the damn bananas affected my BMs GRRRRR!
 
When I was in overnight just before Christmas they put me in a room of my own, with bathroom attached and two doors between me and the corridor. Didn't help much. I don't get a great deal of sleep anyway, but the bed was rock hard and the nurses' station was opposite the room so I got to listen to them yacking all night and the thump of teacups hitting the counter. I slept better on the train down to Peterborough the next day.
 
Laura davies said:
Kookycat reading your story i wonder if potassium levels fall because we have D! In my recent stay my potassium levels low and they said it can affect the heart i was giving tablets like a big dissolvable aspirin and told to eat bananas but of course the damn bananas affected my BMs GRRRRR!
Click to expand...

Hi Laura
It's a side effect of rapid insulin delivery, and taking insulin in general I was told. It's considered quite rare but I still have to have my potassium checked regularly. I had those giant fizzy tablets, ruddy awful things, don't miss those at all. Btw if you have the problem again avocados are high potassium and don't affect my blood sugar. Such fun this Diabetes lark 🙄
 
When I was in hospital in 2011, I was in a badly-designed ward such that the (ridiculously bright) main lights shone right into my eyes whenever I laid down. 😡 Even worse, they weren't switched off until midnight — and of course they were switched back on again at the start of the hospital day at 6 AM. 🙄

I ended up buying myself an eyemask and some earplugs, just so I could get some sleep...
 
AlisonM said:
When I was in overnight just before Christmas they put me in a room of my own, with bathroom attached and two doors between me and the corridor. Didn't help much. I don't get a great deal of sleep anyway, but the bed was rock hard and the nurses' station was opposite the room so I got to listen to them yacking all night and the thump of teacups hitting the counter. I slept better on the train down to Peterborough the next day.
Click to expand...

I could hear the telly at the nurses station, which turned out to be a godsend because I could chat to the nurses about whatever they were watching. The other ladies whilst lovely weren't great chatters, although they did ask me at least once a day if I was anorexic, it was like Groundhog Day :D
 
Hi kookycat,

Thanks. Yes big tablets those potassium! Avocados i love with prawns and Marie sauce yummy. Yes this diabetes lark grrrr!
 
When my dad had his stint in hospital after the stroke he actually complained that much about noise at night he got 2 people moved out of the ward he was in,so was not so much the noises of the nurse but the other people in his ward, he would never of been so unsympatetic pre stroke but hes a totally diffirent guy now :(
 
Kookycat im laughing at you and those ladies asking if you were anorexic! Cheeky beggars lol. Just got back from an hours walk im 9.9 and im tired. Huge glass of water and im sitting now. I still find exercising and knowing whats best with regards BMs etc! Confused.com!
 
At my local hospital it's just 2 to a room, but I was sharing with a lady with alzheimers - she slept all day, then "chatted" with people who weren't there all night. Result: by the end of my 6-day stay I was on an emotional rollercoaster - no sleep, newly diagnosed, diabetic education in Spanish only, DSN with not a single sympathetic bone in her body = lots of tears!!! Looking back, lol!🙂
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top