(no subject)
Sometimes I wonder why I do this job, and then.....
I work on a psychiatric ward so part of this could be triggery for some. So please be warned!
So I work on a busy acute mental health unit. Normally I enjoy my job I've been doing it for the last seven years so I should hope so, and busy is good, busy means there's no time for boredom and a job that keeps you challenged and on your toes is a good thing, but this weekend not so much!
A majority of people who are admitted to the ward want to be there and have asked for help. Those that don't want to be here, are there because they need the sort of help that can't be provided for in the community, and it's our job to help them get back home again. In my job I can honestly say "goodbye! Hope to not see you here again" and mean it in the nicest possible way.
Then there are those who think using the mental health card is a way of avoiding the police.
We had two of them this weekend. The first incident happened when I was on a late shift this Saturday. The morning staff had had a horrendous shift for completely separate reasons and we came on duty dealing with the fallout from that. Later in the day whilst doing the regular checks I found that one of the bedroom doors had been barricaded. I automatically thought the worst and called a colleague for help, we broke in and found this guy with a knife that he had stolen from the dining room. Now normally they're pretty blunt, so he was rather diligently sharpening it on the wall outside his room. What scared us was this guy has a history of using knives to threaten people, his ex-girlfriend had had a panic alarm fitted by the police and there were a couple of other incidents where he'd threatened people. He'd been bailed to us for assessment of his mental state and had been deemed to have no mental illness was currently awaiting discharge and the police had provided us with a reference number should he become a problem.... we used it.
Now we're a stand alone unit and outside of office hours we're *only* staffed by nurses and health care support workers. None of us are trained to disarm anyone with a weapon, all we can hope to do is negotiate our way out of a situation. Fortunately for us the police were pretty swift in responding, and the guy was rather passive as he was escorted away. Now I know that I've maybe been it the job for too long when the worst part of it for me was the excessive amount of paperwork that needed to be done and then having to give statements to the police, mind you I did get the cute one ;)
The second incident was on the Sunday night shift, where a charming young lady escalated her behavior to the point that when staff had to intervene. She threatened to stab them, spending the evening threatening the charge nurse, again this delightful individual had history of assault, she had once attempted to stab a member of the public because they wouldn't give her a light for her cigarette! Yet again the police were called and she was escorted away. They later contacted the ward to inform the staff that when searched they had found a home meade blade concealed on her.
Now these incidents are *Not* the norm for us. They do happen, but are pretty infrequent and two similar incidents in a row is a complete rarity. So working on Monday morning after the "weekend that felt like it was never going to end" I felt like what the hell am I doing here?
Then there was a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a simple compliment. We're part of a project designed to make the ward more efficient and free up staff to spend more time with the patients. It was met, and continues to be met with degree of cynicism by most of the staff. Now somewhat uncharacteristically I volunteered to be part of the project team and it's been interesting and surprisingly enjoyable, the project manager was someone who has successfully managed to implement this project on other wards. He told me (with a straight face) that all the feedback he had been getting back on me was that I was "awesome" he used a few other complimentary phrases as well, but I was too busy being gobsmacked to take it all in.
So at the end of a hellish weekend I find out that actually not only am I doing a good job, but that I'm really good at doing my job. So I think that I'll stay here a little longer :D
I work on a psychiatric ward so part of this could be triggery for some. So please be warned!
So I work on a busy acute mental health unit. Normally I enjoy my job I've been doing it for the last seven years so I should hope so, and busy is good, busy means there's no time for boredom and a job that keeps you challenged and on your toes is a good thing, but this weekend not so much!
A majority of people who are admitted to the ward want to be there and have asked for help. Those that don't want to be here, are there because they need the sort of help that can't be provided for in the community, and it's our job to help them get back home again. In my job I can honestly say "goodbye! Hope to not see you here again" and mean it in the nicest possible way.
Then there are those who think using the mental health card is a way of avoiding the police.
We had two of them this weekend. The first incident happened when I was on a late shift this Saturday. The morning staff had had a horrendous shift for completely separate reasons and we came on duty dealing with the fallout from that. Later in the day whilst doing the regular checks I found that one of the bedroom doors had been barricaded. I automatically thought the worst and called a colleague for help, we broke in and found this guy with a knife that he had stolen from the dining room. Now normally they're pretty blunt, so he was rather diligently sharpening it on the wall outside his room. What scared us was this guy has a history of using knives to threaten people, his ex-girlfriend had had a panic alarm fitted by the police and there were a couple of other incidents where he'd threatened people. He'd been bailed to us for assessment of his mental state and had been deemed to have no mental illness was currently awaiting discharge and the police had provided us with a reference number should he become a problem.... we used it.
Now we're a stand alone unit and outside of office hours we're *only* staffed by nurses and health care support workers. None of us are trained to disarm anyone with a weapon, all we can hope to do is negotiate our way out of a situation. Fortunately for us the police were pretty swift in responding, and the guy was rather passive as he was escorted away. Now I know that I've maybe been it the job for too long when the worst part of it for me was the excessive amount of paperwork that needed to be done and then having to give statements to the police, mind you I did get the cute one ;)
The second incident was on the Sunday night shift, where a charming young lady escalated her behavior to the point that when staff had to intervene. She threatened to stab them, spending the evening threatening the charge nurse, again this delightful individual had history of assault, she had once attempted to stab a member of the public because they wouldn't give her a light for her cigarette! Yet again the police were called and she was escorted away. They later contacted the ward to inform the staff that when searched they had found a home meade blade concealed on her.
Now these incidents are *Not* the norm for us. They do happen, but are pretty infrequent and two similar incidents in a row is a complete rarity. So working on Monday morning after the "weekend that felt like it was never going to end" I felt like what the hell am I doing here?
Then there was a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a simple compliment. We're part of a project designed to make the ward more efficient and free up staff to spend more time with the patients. It was met, and continues to be met with degree of cynicism by most of the staff. Now somewhat uncharacteristically I volunteered to be part of the project team and it's been interesting and surprisingly enjoyable, the project manager was someone who has successfully managed to implement this project on other wards. He told me (with a straight face) that all the feedback he had been getting back on me was that I was "awesome" he used a few other complimentary phrases as well, but I was too busy being gobsmacked to take it all in.
So at the end of a hellish weekend I find out that actually not only am I doing a good job, but that I'm really good at doing my job. So I think that I'll stay here a little longer :D