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Letters | In Hong Kong hospitals, nurses and patients need a dose of mutual respect
- Staffing shortages may have taken a toll on how nurses communicate with patients, and resulted in an over-reliance on trainees and assistants
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I write in response to “Nurses in training reveal scale of abuse” (June 10). Unfortunately, as is often the case in such studies, the important point is missed; the point being, as nursing student Chan Tze-kwan said, “to be more careful when talking to or approaching patients”.
Being more careful should mean, in my opinion and personal experience of being nursed, listening to the patient, not just talking at him or her, and understanding the patient’s medical condition and its possible impact, not to mention the confusion of some elderly patients, and the emotional or mental condition of others.
This may be too much of a generalisation but, from my hospitalisation experiences, I have found inadequate nursing management – nurses talking loudly “at” confused patients, overuse of trainees and inappropriate tasks given to nursing “assistants”, possibly linked to nursing shortages and inadequacy in good communication. I saw a trainee on two occasions scolded by a nurse for sympathy shown to patients.
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Patients are not properly respected and nurses often seem unable or insufficiently trained to help with information. Doctors are excused as being “too busy” to talk to patients.
The nurse shortage may result from restrictions on employment from overseas, as with doctors in the public sector, inadequate management, and unsuitable working conditions for proper patient care. Not attractive to potential recruits.
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