My daughter works as a nurse on a ward in a central London hospital. Every now and again, they have a patient on their ward who is serving a prison sentence. That’s cool, we look after our prisoners health needs so that they can hopefully become a productive member of society upon their release.
So, a few weeks ago, “Billy” arrived on her ward after he’s had an operation. He’s accompanied by two prison officers, but isn’t handcuffed either to the prison officers or his bed.
In the wee small hours, my daughter goes to check his obs. The usual; blood pressure, O2 saturation, temperature. The prison officers both have headphones on and are watching their own laptops/tablets and not paying any attention to Billy.
When my daughter woke Billy up, he said “You keep waking me up and I’ll make you f**king sorry for it!”
My daughter stood her ground. “Billy, I am checking you to make sure you’re fit and well and that there’s no sign of any infection after your surgery. You don’t get to talk to me that way when I only have your best interests at heart!”
She then turned to the prison officers. “You two! In future, when a member of staff comes in to deal with your prisoner, at least one of you can stop watching Netflix and take your headphones off: preferably both of you!”
Billy started backtracking once the officers were aware. “Sorry miss, sorry. I’m just really tired.”
“I don’t care that you’re tired. I have to do this. I have to keep you well enough to discharge. If I don’t, I lose my career. You can sleep the rest of the day if you like, I have a job to do.” She took his obs.
My daughter then left the room and went to the computer and wrote up on Billy’s notes what had just happened. She also made the ward sister aware.
All future nursing interventions were carried out by two nurses at a time as obviously the prison officers cannot be trusted to intervene if Billy decided to play up.
This is my daughter. Does she look like the kind of person to take any crap off patients? She takes crap from nobody, whether she’s at work or not.
I did suggest that she should also report the prison officers but she said Billy was moved back to the hospital in prison the following day and she was definitely glad to see the back of him.