Just one of those days

I foolishly agreed to do a weekday day shift yesterday. I usually avoid them like the plague because the lack of enhancements + the presence of management usually = not worth the hassle. As it was, I saw one manager for five minutes, so wasn't too bad on that front. Unfortunately, I got shifted to the womens ward; instead of the (comparatively) quiet shift I had been hoping for, I got a day of breaking up fights and verbal abuse. Oh, and special obs. Joy.

For those that don't know, so-called special obs (or enhanced, or constant obs) are when you observe a patient on a 1:1 (or sometimes 2:1, if it's a dangerous patient) basis. Our trust has 2 types; within eyesight, where you just have to be able to see them at all times, or within arms reach, where you have to be able to physically touch them if necessary. The second one is pretty rare, but yesterday I got to do eyesight obs for about 6 hours of my shift. Supposedly, you should only do them for an hour at a time, because of the intense nature of sitting with someone who may be actively trying to kill themselves. In the end, I was doing 2.5 hour stints because it was less stress than getting involved in the rest of the shit that was going on on the ward. The patient had self harmed quite badly a few days before (some idiot had given her a razor and she'd started hacking at tendons) but was now quite settled; she was being specialled because she had an anniversary coming up that might be a trigger. She spent most of the day in her room, and luckily slept in a position that pretty much precluded her being able to SI under the covers. Some patients have been known to SI very badly whilst being specialled; if the nurse lets them put their hands under the covers, sometimes the first they know of it is when the blood starts dripping off the sheets. But this girl was ok in that respect.

She got chatty on the afternoon, and decided she was going to try to shock me. Cue much swearing, discussion of sexual and criminal behaviour and general grossness. I'm pretty unshockable by now, which I guess is a good thing. She didn't get a reaction anyway, although I felt like I needed to wash my brain a bit when she finished.

In between specialling, there was the delightful job of stopping the rest of the patients from killing each other. There is a certain subset of patients who are completely intolerant of their fellow patients illnesses; even though they themselves are ill, and behave inappropriately on occasion, as soon as they see another patient doing so they turn on them. They either can't or won't try to understand or empathise. This ward is basically full of patients like this, who hate each other, and meal times were like being in a school yard with all the bickering and arguments and threats to life and limb. Frankly, I wanted to bang their bloody heads together. One nurse did have the bright idea of getting them to stop fighting by giving them a common enemy; us. So we had a few minutes of getting ranted at by everyone before they turned on each other again, but I'm used to that.

The highlight of the day was being called a fucking cunt by a starey-eyed, screaming banshee of a woman whom I had the audacity to ask to stop shouting abuse at another patient.

And people wonder why I prefer to work nights; the patients are all asleep and I get paid nearly 50% more for it.

*Sigh.* I do actually like talking to patients, it's the whole point of the job, after all. But sometimes you just have one of those days that makes you think, what the fuck am I doing?