A night shift

As there have been a few problems with new staff getting me work at my nursing agency, I took a night shift at Southlands Hospital for the first time in ages on Tuesday night. As night shifts go, it was quite busy, but quite enjoyable. I was on an orthopaedic ward, the patients are only there for a few days while they have their hip/shoulder replacements (or whatever) and then they go home as soon as possible. Compared to some places I work they mostly need a lot of monitoring, particularly after their operations. This involves hourly taking of blood pressures and temperatures which can get a bit tedious after a while, although the patients don’t seem to complain.

It can be a slightly creepy experience wandering around a large hospital in the early hours of the morning. At least I remembered to bring some half-decent food with me this time, it keeps you feeling half-human when you haven’t had any sleep. A couple of new admissions knocked on the door at 7.00 a.m. which kept us busy at the end of the shift. But just as we thought everything was done and the two staff nurses had started to handover to the morning day staff, we discovered a woman sitting in a mixture of her own faeces and fluid leaking from a wound. Clearing that lot up woke me up!

The main problem for me with night shifts is how they muck up your sleep patterns, unless you are doing them regularly. Otherwise I would probably do more as they pay better and are usually quite relaxed compared to day shifts.

One or two album reviews have surfaced on the net this week, and there’s been some very nice feedback indeed from several people who’ve bought a copy. That really does make it all worthwhile.