hospital duty
i think i shd post about it lah. yes.
the five days spent at changi general hospital,ward 46 (all female) was really enriching on the whole although sometimes we get a bit bored at arnd 11+ coz nothing to do in the middle. so each day's shift is 5 hrs long frm 8.00 to 1.00.
for the first day, we stood at the counter area for like 40 min trying to attract the attention of the nurses there but to no avail coz they r really v busy. finally somehow we got swiped into their duties and the paitients and everything just sorta started. :) They were giving out breakfast so we helped. i fed an old malay patient: bed 22. one thing i learned nurses always call paitients by bed number not by name coz they simply have too many patients coming in and gg out. it took me a while to feed her prob 30 min to 45 min. her hands were so shaky. yet she seemed so determined to finish everything. and i felt the beauty of perseverence...
then in the middle we just went around the ward. there's 6 'rooms' if im not wrong. but all the walls are halfway up so u can see from one end of the ward to the other end. each 'room' has 6 beds. each bed has an attendent call bell. and there's a light above the entrance of each room to show u which room is calling. there's lights outside each of the 3 bathrooms and every individual cubicle as well. v cool. then each bed has curtains! i like e curtains. the way they go around the bed in a rectangular manner. :) we draw e curtains to maintain privacy of the patients. then the bed is somewhat like the one in our sj room. so as i was saying, as we go round we'll see patients waving or calling us. so we'll go over. most of the time it'll be things like help them pour water, lower/elevate bed, cover blanket, why still no lunch, go toilet etc. main jobs like assisting patient to washroom we'll get e commote(sp?) for them to sit them wheel them into a cubicle. but if they can walk then we'll just support them. i got rather irritated when sometimes i asked the nurses something about a patient they ask me to go ask e staff nurse in charge. sigh but i know it's not cause they r inflexible but coz each staff nurse is incharge of specific bed...but still. a bit inconvinient. esp since u dunno which staff nurse to ask.
for lunch i fed bed 22 again. she's getting better. :) towards the end of my first's day's duty, an indian nurse asked me to go over and help me do translating. so she'll tell me what to ask e patient (new patient; bed 17) and then i'll ask in chi and then translate her ans to eng for e nurse. then had to help her change into e hospital pjs. and a male doctor came to look at her. a nurse pushed me into e curtained cubicle to ask me to 'stand by'. i was v shocked at whatever happened inside....shall not elaborate here. soon the day ended. faster than i had expected. our next shift was zone 2 pple.
this is getting so long. im only at 2nd day now. haha.k so 2nd day i was slightly earlier and then we did bedmaking! the nurses will call us 'my dear...go make bed 15 then go bed 20...' :)we'll rip off the old bedsheets and put them into e wheeling trolley then change e bedsheets that might not even fit e bed (they're elastic; so much for envelope folds haha) then change pillowcase and if blanket is dirty change blanket. they're way of folding blanket is different from ours. after this norm have to accompany paitient to bathe and brushteeth. then by 2nd day some sort of know where to get e towels,bedsheets, pillowcase, combs, cups, wheelchairs and commotes. hot water and drinks in pantry. red cups for chi. blue cups for muslim. dispose waste and stuff at sleive (sp?) room. wash hands after each time u attend to a paitient during nedmaking. wear gloves when helping patient use bedpan, change diaper etc. ok, i do not like helping patient use bedpan (bed 16 etc haha a lot lor) or change diaper (bed 29). i admit....today didn't really feed anyone. bed 22 patient is really getting better.
by day 3 my finger was peeling from all the washing of hands. :( anyway. today a bit late. badmaking as usual. then feeding patient. assisting patient to washroom. help patient use bedpan. (by know there is no part of a body that u haven't seen)... attending to their needs... and wash dentures. yes. bed 39 i think or 40 something aske dme if i could help her wash dentures. anyway forgot to mention there's this nurse we met at day one (they rotate shifts everyday) called mariana she's quite nice and steffi thinks she looks like e slimmer and taller version of ma'am siti and she's really a ma'am frm sj zone 2. haha.
the next day was about the same thing. but there was this v v nice nurse whom i like a lot. er name is jasmin, she's an enrolled nurse so unlike the staff nurses she has more time to be bothered with us. think she's an indonesian... hmm. anyways she keeps saying anything we dunno can ask. and she keeps calling us my dears as well. things she taught us:
- taking the blood sugar level of patients
(We tailed her ard and she didn't seem to mind and she started to explain to us) first she'll use this purple thing it's an automatic needle i think so once she presses the thing into e patient's finger it is pricked. then she gets this small machine that has a bit of cotton at the end to absorb the blood. on the small screen u will see a number. that's e blood sugar level. norm level is 4-6 if lesser thatn that is hypoglycemia. higher is hyperglycemia. most of them were all higher and it's really high like 11 and 12 that kind. old pple mostly diabetic...
-shift patient frm wheelchair to bed and vice versa
one hand grasp patient's upperarm area or armpit area to support. another hand to hold the pants to shift e patient's butt ask patient to place left hand on left arm of wheelchair. rmb to lock wheelchair when patient is on it or supporting her weight on it. :)
-bedmaking
we already knew roughly what to do but she was nice enough to show me when she asked me to help her.
-taking out e IV drip needle
take off the plastic securing it. pluck out needle straight out. presses with alchohol swap. stop bleeding. put plaster. :) then dispose e IV drip solution.
-taking hot water for patients
go pantry. :)
last day! a bit sad. sigh although i know it's v tiring and i shd be glad everything's over. no more waking at 5.30 and bothering if e mrt is unusually slow frm jurong all the way to simei. apparently im not e most tired. haha. i found out yh and steffi fall asleep once they reach home everyday. then only wake at dinnertime. haha. whee i only fell asleep on tues! haha
i fed bed 24. she used to be tube feed only so need to add thickener to thicken her oats and milo..so won't choke easily. i tried to talk to her. spoke is chi. no reply. cantonese. no reply. ask yh come overto speak hokkien. no reply. malay. no reply. then when her relatives came. she can speak ENGLISH lah!! -.-'
today i did bedmaking with patient! coz she had soiled through her diaper and pants to the bedsheet. assisting patient to washroom. help patient use bedpan and COLLECT URINE SAMPLE...yh is so yong2 gan3... answer call bell. (by the fifth day, every kind a ring makes u look up to see if its e call bell ringing.) sigh. gonna miss ward 46....
pity i can't be a nurse haha got to go poly to take nursing course. coz it's really quite meaningful a job...
the five days spent at changi general hospital,ward 46 (all female) was really enriching on the whole although sometimes we get a bit bored at arnd 11+ coz nothing to do in the middle. so each day's shift is 5 hrs long frm 8.00 to 1.00.
for the first day, we stood at the counter area for like 40 min trying to attract the attention of the nurses there but to no avail coz they r really v busy. finally somehow we got swiped into their duties and the paitients and everything just sorta started. :) They were giving out breakfast so we helped. i fed an old malay patient: bed 22. one thing i learned nurses always call paitients by bed number not by name coz they simply have too many patients coming in and gg out. it took me a while to feed her prob 30 min to 45 min. her hands were so shaky. yet she seemed so determined to finish everything. and i felt the beauty of perseverence...
then in the middle we just went around the ward. there's 6 'rooms' if im not wrong. but all the walls are halfway up so u can see from one end of the ward to the other end. each 'room' has 6 beds. each bed has an attendent call bell. and there's a light above the entrance of each room to show u which room is calling. there's lights outside each of the 3 bathrooms and every individual cubicle as well. v cool. then each bed has curtains! i like e curtains. the way they go around the bed in a rectangular manner. :) we draw e curtains to maintain privacy of the patients. then the bed is somewhat like the one in our sj room. so as i was saying, as we go round we'll see patients waving or calling us. so we'll go over. most of the time it'll be things like help them pour water, lower/elevate bed, cover blanket, why still no lunch, go toilet etc. main jobs like assisting patient to washroom we'll get e commote(sp?) for them to sit them wheel them into a cubicle. but if they can walk then we'll just support them. i got rather irritated when sometimes i asked the nurses something about a patient they ask me to go ask e staff nurse in charge. sigh but i know it's not cause they r inflexible but coz each staff nurse is incharge of specific bed...but still. a bit inconvinient. esp since u dunno which staff nurse to ask.
for lunch i fed bed 22 again. she's getting better. :) towards the end of my first's day's duty, an indian nurse asked me to go over and help me do translating. so she'll tell me what to ask e patient (new patient; bed 17) and then i'll ask in chi and then translate her ans to eng for e nurse. then had to help her change into e hospital pjs. and a male doctor came to look at her. a nurse pushed me into e curtained cubicle to ask me to 'stand by'. i was v shocked at whatever happened inside....shall not elaborate here. soon the day ended. faster than i had expected. our next shift was zone 2 pple.
this is getting so long. im only at 2nd day now. haha.k so 2nd day i was slightly earlier and then we did bedmaking! the nurses will call us 'my dear...go make bed 15 then go bed 20...' :)we'll rip off the old bedsheets and put them into e wheeling trolley then change e bedsheets that might not even fit e bed (they're elastic; so much for envelope folds haha) then change pillowcase and if blanket is dirty change blanket. they're way of folding blanket is different from ours. after this norm have to accompany paitient to bathe and brushteeth. then by 2nd day some sort of know where to get e towels,bedsheets, pillowcase, combs, cups, wheelchairs and commotes. hot water and drinks in pantry. red cups for chi. blue cups for muslim. dispose waste and stuff at sleive (sp?) room. wash hands after each time u attend to a paitient during nedmaking. wear gloves when helping patient use bedpan, change diaper etc. ok, i do not like helping patient use bedpan (bed 16 etc haha a lot lor) or change diaper (bed 29). i admit....today didn't really feed anyone. bed 22 patient is really getting better.
by day 3 my finger was peeling from all the washing of hands. :( anyway. today a bit late. badmaking as usual. then feeding patient. assisting patient to washroom. help patient use bedpan. (by know there is no part of a body that u haven't seen)... attending to their needs... and wash dentures. yes. bed 39 i think or 40 something aske dme if i could help her wash dentures. anyway forgot to mention there's this nurse we met at day one (they rotate shifts everyday) called mariana she's quite nice and steffi thinks she looks like e slimmer and taller version of ma'am siti and she's really a ma'am frm sj zone 2. haha.
the next day was about the same thing. but there was this v v nice nurse whom i like a lot. er name is jasmin, she's an enrolled nurse so unlike the staff nurses she has more time to be bothered with us. think she's an indonesian... hmm. anyways she keeps saying anything we dunno can ask. and she keeps calling us my dears as well. things she taught us:
- taking the blood sugar level of patients
(We tailed her ard and she didn't seem to mind and she started to explain to us) first she'll use this purple thing it's an automatic needle i think so once she presses the thing into e patient's finger it is pricked. then she gets this small machine that has a bit of cotton at the end to absorb the blood. on the small screen u will see a number. that's e blood sugar level. norm level is 4-6 if lesser thatn that is hypoglycemia. higher is hyperglycemia. most of them were all higher and it's really high like 11 and 12 that kind. old pple mostly diabetic...
-shift patient frm wheelchair to bed and vice versa
one hand grasp patient's upperarm area or armpit area to support. another hand to hold the pants to shift e patient's butt ask patient to place left hand on left arm of wheelchair. rmb to lock wheelchair when patient is on it or supporting her weight on it. :)
-bedmaking
we already knew roughly what to do but she was nice enough to show me when she asked me to help her.
-taking out e IV drip needle
take off the plastic securing it. pluck out needle straight out. presses with alchohol swap. stop bleeding. put plaster. :) then dispose e IV drip solution.
-taking hot water for patients
go pantry. :)
last day! a bit sad. sigh although i know it's v tiring and i shd be glad everything's over. no more waking at 5.30 and bothering if e mrt is unusually slow frm jurong all the way to simei. apparently im not e most tired. haha. i found out yh and steffi fall asleep once they reach home everyday. then only wake at dinnertime. haha. whee i only fell asleep on tues! haha
i fed bed 24. she used to be tube feed only so need to add thickener to thicken her oats and milo..so won't choke easily. i tried to talk to her. spoke is chi. no reply. cantonese. no reply. ask yh come overto speak hokkien. no reply. malay. no reply. then when her relatives came. she can speak ENGLISH lah!! -.-'
today i did bedmaking with patient! coz she had soiled through her diaper and pants to the bedsheet. assisting patient to washroom. help patient use bedpan and COLLECT URINE SAMPLE...yh is so yong2 gan3... answer call bell. (by the fifth day, every kind a ring makes u look up to see if its e call bell ringing.) sigh. gonna miss ward 46....
pity i can't be a nurse haha got to go poly to take nursing course. coz it's really quite meaningful a job...
posted by C~~~@ at 6:17 AM
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