LIFE OF A NURSE
Nursing is defined as “the protection,
promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and
injury, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human
response and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, communities and
populations”.
A person chooses to become a nurse
might be due to various reasons like- few individuals might have dreamt to
serve the people due to personal or social experience since childhood, few
might have dreamt to work Overseas, few might have thought to get concrete job
in future. Whatever the reason is, a person cannot become a nurse overnight. It
demands tons of sacrifices, dedication, kindness and love towards mankind.
The journey of a B.Sc. nurse begins
with the first step she takes out of house after completion of high school (12th
standard) to pursue her dream and ends up to the nursing college with many
unknown faces having similar hopes and thoughts. Since, she knows that she has
4 long years to go to complete her degree, she starts to compromise and adapt
in the environment she is in. In order to complete her course, she not only has
to pay lakhs of hard-earned money of her parents, but also has to forget her
eating, sleeping and recreation time. College life of a nurse is not as easy as
it seems to be. She has to study so hard that she barely sleeps for 6 hours as
she has to study for exams of various subjects almost every day. She rarely enjoys
her weekends as, apart from washing and cleaning for a week, she has to complete
a thick note book of assignments almost every week. Add on to that, she has to
undergo numerous community postings in order to understand, educate and provide
health aids to the people in the community, numerous hospital postings in order
to get practical exposure with the sick patients. 4 to 6 hours of posting followed
by 3 to 4 hours of theoretical classes mold her to become an iron lady in 4
years. It’s always not necessary that all the students are localities, most of
them might have come from other states or countries. So, for them, language is
not only the barrier, also different culture and tradition and food and life
style make their life harder. However, tackling with all physical and
psychological obstacles, she graduates taking the following ‘Nightingale Pledge’
and gets ready for the life she has dreamed of.
“I solemnly pledge myself before
God and in the presence of this assembly, to pass my life in purity and to
practise my profession faithfully. I will abstain from whatever is deleterious
and mischievous, and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug. I
will do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession,
and will hold in confidence all personal matters committed to my keeping, and
all family affairs coming to my knowledge in the practice of my calling. With
loyalty will I endeavor to aid the physician in his work, and devote myself to
the welfare of those committed to my care’’.
Once a nurse
graduates from college, she has versatile areas to work with. It is always not
mandatory that a nurse has to work in the hospital in order to serve the needy
one. Until she has the loving heart, caring nature and compassion towards
people, a nurse can cure patient in every areas she works.
Following are few of the scopes where a nurse can choose and lead
her career:
1.
Practice- Staff
Nurse
2.
Research-
Research Nurse
3.
Education-
Teacher/ Nursing trainer
4.
School- school
nurse
5.
Industries-
Occupational Nurse
6.
Administration-
medical sector
7.
Military Nurse
Even though there are numbers of other
areas where a nurse can work, maximum of the nurses’ work in Hospital as a
staff nurse. India produces more than 60,000 nurses every year but still many
hospitals have shortage of nurses. Since,
every people have concept that Nurse= Hospital, people start to wonder what a
nurse is doing in any other sectors of the above scope. For instance: If a
nurse is hired in Research institute, surprisingly! she will be asked question-
‘Being a nurse, you are supposed to work in hospital ward, what are you doing
in research?’ That’s how, to some extent, her enthusiasm of leading her professional
career in other field of nursing service shrinks and she is again bound to work
as a staff nurse in the hospital. I don’t understand one thing, when there are
numbers of other fields a nurse can pursue her career then why should she
confined in the hospital?
A nurse is not constrained only as a
patient care provider in health care industry, she directly or indirectly plays
vital roles in multiple aspects in peoples’ life. Following are few of the
important roles she can fulfill in the daily life of the people.
1.
Nurse
Practitioner
2.
Nurse Educator
3.
Nurse
Administrator
4.
Research Nurse
5.
Manager
6.
Counselor
7.
Change Agent
8.
Teacher
9.
Care Giver
10.
Communicator
11.
Client advocate
Even though there are multiple roles
a nurse can play, people still more or less contemplate as a care giver only.
Everybody acknowledges that a
nurse is always a humble, hardworking, dedicated and service-oriented person
but ultimately the same person forgets that she has to sacrifice countless
things to maintain this attitude and uphold the profession. When we think about
a nurse who provides service to the patients in the hospital, we too should
not forget that she provides service to the patients not merely because of her duty
but, because she is a nurse. Actual life of a nurse is not as simple as
patients and their relatives observe in the hospital. A nurse barely knows what
family life is? How personal life is? How does the sunny and the beautiful
days look like? How many spring seasons are faded? How will be the hassles free day in her life? Will there be any night she sleeps without the image of the patients in
her life? From the time she starts her career, she forgets to take care of
herself. She starts her day before dawn with or without a bite of breakfast for
her 1st shift in the hospital, keeps standing and running around the
patients for 8 long hours that mostly extends for 10 hours and returns home
where again responsibilities towards her family keep awaiting. Morning and
afternoon shifts are still not as strenuous as night shifts. Some hospital has
policy of 12 hours night shifts that sometimes elongates for 14 hours, so she
barely manages to get sound sleep in her entire life of nursing profession.
Delirium, fatigue and amnesia are common in nurse’s life which is obviously due
to lack of sleep/ rest and food on time. A nurse is prone to get nosocomial and
cross infections very often. Regardless of all these challenges, she still
wears a radiant smile on her face and take care of patient energetically. However, nursing profession in India doesn’t
seem to be as respectful as other profession. A nurse in Indian perspectives is
only a person who just follows doctors’ order and helps the hospital management
to run the smoothly. People specially in India, think that a nurse is just to
administer medication, provide bedpan, bath bed ridden patients and other
superficial actions which most of the patient’s attender and relatives perceive
in the hospital. Forget about respect, in the some of so called reputed hospitals, patients and relatives do not mind treating a nurse as a servant as they have
spent huge amount of money to the hospital. But how do these people know that
they have spent money to the hospital not to the nurses?
A nurse’s sacrifices, dedication
and hard works would not have gone in vain if she would have paid generously. Nurses
are always underpaid in India. Most of the hospitals pay them very minimum as a
fresher which later on hinders a nurse to grow in her career. A nurse works day
and night but get paid like peanuts. The bigger the hospital, more the workload
and lesser the payment. Staff nurses are still paid 20s’K and need to work
years together to get paid decently. Whereas, same profession is highly valued and paid proficiently in the overseas . Even if a nurse chooses to work in other
areas of her field apart from staff nurse, she still doesn't get as much
salary as she deserves. Therefore, it’s no wonder nurses go abroad and earn
money and respect.
A nurse who is all-rounder round the clock, who barely gets time for
dinning with her family and for whom hospital is second home and patients
indirectly become like family members is neither acknowledged nor recognized by
anyone in the hospital. Even if a
hospital cannot move an inch without nurses and is full of nurses, she is
hardly noticed by anybody in the hospital. Forget about patients and relatives
being thankful and appreciate her endless sacrifices and selfless services she
has provided, some of them don’t even wave her at the time of discharge when they are not happy with the hospital management. Ultimately to everyone, it will
never be nurses but the doctor who save the patients. Indeed, it’s true that ''Nurses’ Day'' is celebrated every year to honor and express gratification to the
nurses but that one day might or might compensate the humiliation,
demoralization and psychological stress she goes through for 364 days. I too don’t deny
the fact that some hospitals have policy to celebrate rewards and recognition regularly to motivate the nurses in the hospital but I feel like it’s giving a
biscuit to a dog to be loyal. Might be self-satisfaction is one of the reasons
why nurses feel happy when they discharge the patients and determine to provide
affectionate care to heal patients in their best possible way, but eventually, their
pocket wrenches their heart every month. Anyway, who is there to acknowledge
their service and reward them for what they deserve? on the contrary, they end up being punching bag to receive
tantrum of everyone in the hospital.
Since, health care system in India
and all over the globe is expanding day by day and demands of the nurses are
always high, it is never difficult for a nurse to get a job. 99% of the nursing
students end up starting their career as a staff nurse. High chances of job
security in nursing profession is one of the reasons why a person chooses
nursing profession. Despite the fact that, nurses are not paid and valued as
other profession do, a nurse doesn’t have to be jobless due to versatile scopes
she can choose. However, it is quite tough for a nurse to grow in her career.
There are numerous scopes but have limited seats in other industries and
existing staffs do not leave so easily, it is being very competitive for a
nurse to get a job other that staff nurse in hospitals. As she is not paid much
from the starting and less likely to have drastic growth in terms of salary in
hospitals, other fields do not seem offer any better. Therefore, nursing is
undeniably a secure job but not the great one in India.
Firstly, as I mentioned
earlier a nurse in many hospitals do not pay fairly. Secondly, she is failed to
recognized in her career and thirdly, she never gets time to learn about the
real world other than hospital and patients. So, many of the companies do not
want to provide her opportunity to prove herself that she is also smart enough
to handle non clinical jobs. A Nurse is not always dumb but honest in her job.
It is noticed that a nurse who has moved ahead with her career in the higher
position in any other company, she is still underestimated, criticized and
discouraged. What is wrong if a nurse works in other industries if she is
capable enough to carry her responsibilities flawlessly? Is it obligatory
for a nurse to be restricted in the hospital to care about the people? It is stereotypical view of the people that a nurse cannot be as smart as employee of
the other industries. Indeed, some of them can be a best resource to the
company but I feel mindset of the people have to be changed and look into broad
prospective to utilize her talents. Curing the patient in the hospital is only
the profession but love, compassion, deep respect to humanity and selfless
motive to help the needy one makes everyone a nurse. Being a nurse is an honor,
move out of hospital and experience the other scope of it is a choice and being
treated equally is the right.
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