Nurses, Doctors what is it like to be them?
I know some friends who are currently nurses and the stories they tell truly make me feel so ashamed for the Singaporean Public.
This blog post will follow Anne (Not Real Name) a polyclinic health care worker who anonymously shared her experiences while working within the industry.
Anonymous Nurse : Anne
Her day starts out at 6.30 am, she works at [REDACTED] Polyclinic
She just recently graduated from [REDACTED] Polytechnic and decided to begin her career first before going towards and advanced diploma or a full degree at NUS or SIT.
Her working hours are from 8 am to 5 pm. Usually with a work week of 5.5 days every alternate week. She is relatively new working there for roughly 5 months earning a salary of around $2k to $2.5k.
All numbers, names, dates and locations have been changed or redacted to guard identity of interviewees.
Incident 1
Patient A wanted to rush into the polyclinic to receive immediate attention from the doctor.
Patient thought by just saying that he/she knows the nurse, he/she could circumvent the queue system and see the doctor immediately, despite not having an appoint nor getting a queue ticket.
What awaited her team was around 2 hours of back and forth bickering. Disrupting or even annoying them when trying to attend to other patients.
Incident 2
Last year 4th Quarter, between the months of October and December, 9.30am. A drunk man wandered into the premises of the polyclinic and proceeded to start harassing the nurses and registration stuff. He went onto one of the nurses and proceeded to vomit all over her. Security managed to kick him out.
Nursing can be a hard job, intense work schedule and you are not really dealing with nice people all of the time.
Nurses do get the iron rice bowl classification of job security. However, more skills other than medical knowledge are demanded from them. From customer service, crisis management, administration and even language skills.
The task of being a nurse requires a lot, and I think they should be adequately compensated for their time and service they give to all of us.
From my conversations with them, I’m genuinely just more disappointed with the behavior of Singaporeans. Especially the older generation, tend to have a bad reputation of being a bunch of boomers.
I understand that patients do go through anxiety when it comes to their health, its a completely normal circumstance to be in. However, I will not tolerate trying to use your status or plain old nepotism to try and get in front of the line first. Such snobbish behavior is completely unacceptable.
We need to do better, nurses are there to help you, not to baby sit you. You are just another patient amongst the thousands they see every week. You are not special.
Treat your healthcare workers with respect. Having to beg someone to be kind is insane.
