Cardiac Arrest

Time to get on my soap box and make a political point I feel very strongly about....

Now you Americans out there won't have the first idea of the concept of not enough money for health care, but if you live in the UK it is an all too familiar story. The cuts we are having to endure in order for our Government to be able to fund the desecration if Iraq and anywhere else that takes their fancy are massive...so massive I can't list them, but the Trust I work for has to save £30,000,000 this year after saving £22,000,000 last year. Do you get the picture? (And this is just one London Hospital........)

One of the services that has gone is outreach. This is where experienced Intensive Care nurses prowl the wards, checking up on sick patients and ex ICU patients to ensure they are getting the level of care they need. I swear blind, that when the service was up and running cardiac arrests on the wards fell massively as problems were being picked up early, and were dealt with. I was one of the nurses that worked on this service for a while, and believe me, even the doctors need to be told when the patient needs extra fluid and more!

Now, the patients are being left at the mercy of junior doctors, inexperienced nurses and a service that is SO stretched it can barely cope. I haven't attended an arrest for months... could even be more than a year and there were 2 in 2 weeks and I've noticed that generally there are more and more. One of the patients had been deteriorating gradually overnight, and to be fair on the nurses they had been calling the doctors regularly. But they never came, and the nurses just didn't know what to do. She died. Ditto a woman a week later. Sent out from ICU too early as they are desperate for the beds...died horribly.

Now those of you who have witnessed a cardiac arrest know how violent and gruesome they are. Nothing like what they put on the telly, or even James Bond!! Can you imagine the feeling of someones sternum cracking when you compress their chest ?...oh yes..it happens. The blood, shit and vomit that is always there, and nine times out of ten, you are sliding in it. The next of kin screaming in your ear and some poor little nurse trying to calm them down. The body convulses when you shock it with the defibrillator, and sometimes, the patient/corpse thumps you when their arms fly up. They should be avoided at all costs, for everyones sake.

We need to get our priorities sorted out in this country...if it means we have to go over to the American system to sort it , then so be it. I would rather know that if I'm sick the staff that are there are able to cope.

And we need to sort out nurse training , but that's another story........