Last night I finished a full day at uni and went to do a twilight shift at work. 19.00 hours to 02.00 hours.
This morning I was up at 08.30 to get some uni stuff sorted, and then back this afternoon at work for a 1400 hours start. This time though, I didn't know which ward I was to be working on, as I agreed to be the locum HCA. This kinda means that I'm at the beck and call of the staffing managers, and if they say jump, I do kartwheels.
The powers that be sent me onto an orthopaedic ward - could be worse. Familiar faces to work with, a generally nice team.... and the opportunity to soak myself in someone else's urine after the collection bottle used to empty the catheter bag appeared to have a hole in it.
I got absolutely soaked in cold wee, all the way down my tunic top and trousers. I had to rescue my mobile phone from my pocket as it too was covered... Not nice.
This did mean that I got to wear scrubs for the rest of the shift - however I broke a cardinal rule of nursing work. I had to take a shower in one of the patient's bathrooms... Nice
2 comments:
I have used patient bathrooms before....and have also barged in on them by accident cause they never close the door (the incidence of AMI in hospital bathrooms is rather high)
Hey, cold wee is a whole lot better than warm wee!
I'm a microbiologist and one of my personal rules is 'no warm specimens' - once they are at room temperature rather than 37 degrees I can deal with almost anything without squeamishness. Do you see why I'm not a frontline healthcare professional?
We also get labcoats, gloves and safety cabinets which helps!
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