Real stories – Hayley Z, registered nurse
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Hayley Z talks about her day at work.
It seems as though the ward is actually quite reasonable at the moment. I might be able to get off a couple hours early and that is what is great about being a nurse. In all of the situations, depending on how busy the ward is you can take a couple of hours toil and finish early and it gives you from one o’clock in the afternoon to catch up on housework, go shopping, go for a coffee, do whatever you want.
So that is another joy of this job is that the hours are flexible.
One of them has acute asthma and she has just had a massive asthma attack and we are treating her with nebulisers every couple of hours and we really have to keep on top of her, so she will keep me on my toes this afternoon.
It is really rewarding when your patients really acknowledge how much help you give them and it really accentuates why we get into this job – because we really are helping people.
Someone who was discharged today and they left a box of chocolates for the ward to have as well as a card and it was rewarding reading what the card read, because this person put in the card “To the angels in disguise, you guys have helped me so much, I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.” And she really congratulated us, the whole ward, on the quality of nursing that we are giving and she reassured us that we are doing the right thing and we are helping people.
There was a cardiac arrest on the ward adjacent to ours today. We had to be on the call just in case they needed any more assistance and I reckon my pulse was probably doing about 150. It’s really amazing how it’s such a good feeling when you can help out and be quick!
We have also got a seminar to go to on urinary impairment and dialysis which is really helpful. Because we work in the country we get a lot of different patients in, so going to these seminars helps us understand what we are treating and how to nurse these patients specifically and it just helps us gain knowledge to be better nurses in general, which is always helpful.