The shame of our Nurses

The BBC can hardly bring itself to name the problem. Reports talk about the NHS failing to treat the Elderly well. But the truth is that its nurses that don't treat elderly people well.

This morning I heard a BBC presenter interviewing the author of this report, Ann Abraham, trying to tie in cuts to the picture, but she was rebuffed by the author who has clearly said this is nothing to do with money.

Its to do with the way elderly people are viewed by the young.

If nurses have an excuse - its that their failing is also that of our society. The Fascist upbringing of our youth with their cult of self fed by eager marketers and educators in equal measure is in part to blame.

The empty morality of the pick and mix religious view pushed especially by Labour, but continued by the current government is to blame.

People who don't fear being judged for their actions and have no respect for their elders just decide that "I don't do mess". Since in the case of Nurses rather than starting as apprentices under the watchful eye of senior staff they go to University and indulge the cult of self for another three years rather than learning about being selfless this is no surprise.

Here the hard truth that dare not speak its name. Our nurses as a vocational group should be ashamed, if they still knew how to behave - but instead they will hit back and hit out.

The truth is this isn't about money, its about morality and its widespread absence and our societies failure.

PS I have no trouble thinking of a number of recent cases I know of that back the report of Ann Abraham up. It would not surprise me if that isn't the general case.

See also: Julia Manning who says "what has happened to society if we need to be trained to ‘care’ for the vulnerable?".

Also Christina Odone "The NHS is failing our elderly: blame the nurses, not the doctors"

Isn't nursing a vocation rather than an academic discipline ?

My wife works in one of the professions allied to the health industry. She's furious with her professional organisation that has got into bed with the government to try and promote it professional standing and go for a turf war with the other professions. Especially as what it means is vastly inflated fees and a tread mill of box ticking continuing professional development that only benefits those who deliver such material.

On the same theme today we discover that nursing is now to be a degree only profession. Of course a new level below nursing will appear as nurses will be too expensive as they will have all that debt to repay and such a move will further reduce the supply of nurses ( if Labour cut of the mass immigration of nurses and mass emigration of our own home grown nurses ).

I think the big risk here is the further loss of empathy and vocational commitment.

A University education is usually great fun. Another three years in the mono culture of people your own age group, perhaps even your own sex for some subjects, where you are the centre of attention combined with the new hedonistic religion of self fulfilment and life long debt which you can never pay off can be a great time. But one thing it doesn't do is build empathy for the whole of society, especially the sick part - if you ignore the superficial rich guilt that leads so many otherwise intelligent people into the arms of socialism.

And one complaint that occurs again and again about modern nursing is that the nurses are more intrested in each other and their social life than the patients. Especially unattractive patients who are demanding, smelly and unpleasant.

Now I admit I may have this wrong - but it seems to me that an undergraduate degree will reduce the effectiveness of nursing as nurses will only learn about empathy in lecture theatres rather than practice it.

Surely further education would be better spread thought the career of a nurse after they have been placed into the right culture by an apprenticeship in a hospital of the type that was traditionally the route to qualification.

It sometimes seems that the governments aim is to create dysfunction in society, and this looks like an example.