“We are human too”
As part of our new campaign to help reduce violence and aggression and keep our hospitals safe, we are encouraging everyone to take a moment and think about what others may be going through.
Bintu’s story
Sister, Newham Hospital
“I had a patient on the ward who I had a good rapport with. She said I listened to her and was her favourite nurse. We had a good relationship.
One day during the peak of the pandemic, while we had visiting rules in place, someone came to see her. She was only allowed one visitor a day to help us keep everyone safe from Covid-19. On this day, not long after her daily visitor had left, a different visitor called to say they were at the ward and wanted to visit the patient. As I did with all patient visitors at the time, I explained that we welcomed one visitor per patient and that’s when I started to get verbally abused and they started bashing the ward door.
They called me stupid and accused me of having different rules for different people. I asked why they were talking to me like that – I didn’t even know them, and I was simply following the hospital rules. I said that it wasn’t acceptable and that if they continued behaving in that way I would call security. They eventually calmed down.
My patient was really upset and apologised on their behalf, but it wasn’t her fault. The consultant also told me it wasn’t acceptable, and they kindly came to see me later to check that I was ok.
But it had also made me feel upset. Some people don’t think they are responsible for their actions. We need to be compassionate towards our patients and their families, but if we continue to let people get away with this kind of behaviour, then they will keep doing it. We need to stand up for ourselves when people misbehave, report it.
I’ve had aggressive people say to me “but you’re paid for the job”. It’s a job that I love to do but I didn’t sign up to be abused while doing it. We are all human. We have families and kids and husbands, and we leave them to come to work because we enjoy caring for people.”