One time I went through a whole afternoon and night shift (about 16 hours) without having a nurse to give me my medication or flush my nasogastric tube so it didn't block. The tube was supposed to be flushed with water every four hours. It blocked FOUR times due to nobody nursing me, meaning I had to go through the absolute pain of having a tube inserted a total of five times over the course of my admission. Much of my admission I was on bed rest so unable to find a nurse when I needed one. The few times I ventured to buzz for assisstance I was told my the nurse not to waste their time buzzing when I could obviously walk by myself and come find them. This went very badly as the next time I went to go find a nurse I collapsed in the hallway.
Anyway, one of the worst experiences that admission was when I was assigned a male nurse who didn't normally work on the ward. This nurse kept coming into my room, shutting the door, and sitting either on the end of my bed or beside my bed and making very innappropriate comments, essentially as though he was trying to hit on me. He told me I was a very attractive woman and asked me if I had a boyfriend. He also apologised for not looking more attractive in his nursing uniform, and said that he was much better looking when not working. He said this all in a very quiet, creepy, toneless voice, while staring at me intently. When he saw my obvious discomfort he went over to me, placed his hand on my chest, and said I was a very beautiful girl, all the while with his hand against my boob.
After that he left my room, but kept coming back and standing in the doorway, just staring at me for minutes at a time. At that point I went into my neighbour's room and asked if she would come and stay in my room with me until the end of the shift because I didn't feel right with the nurse. She got really upset when he heard what had happened, and immediately went and told the nursing supervisor, which I wasn't game enough to do.
To my surprise, the other nurses were really nice to me, and actually took me seriously, and immediately took that nurse off the ward. The main reason I wasn't going to tell anyone was because I was scared that no one would believe me because I was a mental health patient. I later found out that this wasn't the first time that male nurse had done something like this to a patient.
Long story short, I made a formal complaint, and the nurse was no longer allowed to work in contact with patients. He's since left that job. I only found out that this was the result last week. Although all the other horrible things that happened to me while I was there haven't been addressed, at least this was, and that's a small victory.
