中I was really blessed and incredibly lucky to be under some “old-school” style of care by an authoritative and attentive consultant surgeon. Yet, I actually didn’t get to see or hear much from him except for critical issues or at key moments like my operation. At other times, taking care of me was a team of low-key but dedicated NHS medical staff.
My first impression of the NHS staff was busy —— they’re always on their feet! The ward was like an economy class-only aircraft full of passengers with the cabin run by just a handful of crew members. In addition to distributing meals and selling duty-free goods at designated times, the crew would be always busily serving passengers: those who wanted drinks, landing forms, a pen to borrow, or simply those who were bored and wanted some small talks. Likewise, in the ward, there were schedules for the medicines round, meal times, and measurement of vital signs, but it’s inevitable that patients would need impromptu assistance for the bathroom, bleeding, vomiting, or finding one’s bed. For the latter, we met a male patient who was a bit confused after his operation and got lost quite a few times in the ward. That day, he mistook our bay as his and needed help to return to his own bed.
Actually, the analogy with air travel breaks down at some point. Passengers on the same flight have the same duration for their journeys. Everyone gets off the plane after landing, and the cabin crew can relax after saying farewell to the last passenger. Hospital patients are different —— some are for the short haul (like myself), some for much longer. Those with prolonged stays would get to know the clinical team really well through frequent daily interactions, and often depend on them for private, personal care. Deep mutual trust is so important in that kind of setting. Can you imagine how helpless or scary it feels if you have no choice but to get changed and washed by someone you dislike?
It’s heartwarming that the staff brought little joys to the patients despite being incredibly busy. For example, the lady responsible for our meals always remembered my ward neighbour’s favourite yoghurt flavour and would bring it if in stock, even though it’s not up to patients to choose. Another episode involved a patient who was craving for a cup of decaffeinated tea, which she knew was off-menu. Minutes later, a nurse made the exact brew in the staff pantry and delivered the cuppa himself!
My second impression of the NHS staff is their gentle temperament across the board. It doesn’t matter how complex a patient’s needs are, or how a patient may have said the same thing for the gazillionth time, I have never seen a staff member losing temper in front of patients. You may say that’s because I wasn’t staying in a COVID-19 ward so didn’t get to witness the worst of circumstances. Perhaps. Yet we are not robots and we can’t be in a perpetual perfect mood. I can’t be made to believe that all patients were as reasonable as my neighbours. Some are bound to have a go at the staff or make a big fuss out of nothing? Maybe the staff only release their pent-up frustration in front of their peers and not the patients?
Further to the day-to-day reality of frontline care, the NHS has been blighted by staff shortages for years. Nurses’ handover between shifts are never on time, by this I mean it’s always late. Apart from teachers and carers, who also have care responsibilities for other fellow human beings, I can’t name another group of professionals who would tolerate years of working unpaid overtime. The unfair, low pay of our nurses has always drawn criticisms from the wider public; the voluntary but unpaid hours are just adding salt to injury. Many nurses have shifts lasting for over ten hours, some skipping meals as there’s just no time to grab a bite. Yet, at the end of their exhausting shift, we the patients were still greeted with warm smiles and softly spoken to. Their way home after the shift could be anything from a long drive to a 30-minutes’ walk (that’s after being on one’s feet pretty much the whole shift). Some were pregnant mums with children eagerly waiting for them at home. Junior doctors seem to have similarly demanding shifts too?
My third impression of the NHS staff is their excellent social skills, and I don’t mean chatting about a patient’s condition, since that’s bread and butter in their job. I’m referring to how easily the staff strike a conversation with patients without invoking the weather, the favourite ice-breaker for many British people. I remember the student nurse who described her learning experience under COVID-19 restrictions, the ex-navy nurse telling stories about his military service, who also loved to hum a few tunes to entertain us, and a twenty-something-year-old Zimbabwean nurse who took my ward neighbours by surprise that he’s still living with his parents. He explained that in his culture, unmarried adult children are expected to live with their parents, which is quite different from what my neighbours were familiar with, that is, young adults being encouraged to establish their independence outside the family. There was a hilarious episode with this Zimbabwean nurse. When he learnt that I had graduated from university “many years” ago, he almost mistook me as a child prodigy (he literally asked me at what age I entered university), since he didn’t realise I was not as young as he had thought! Also very cool to meet everyday, especially at breakfast time, was the lady who remembered patients' preferences for yoghurt flavours. Always full of energy, everyone in our bay would be showered by her radiating positivity as soon as she arrived. What a refreshing and energising way to start the day! All these genuine and casual chats were great for building rapport, for distracting patients from some suffering, and for adding a human touch to medical care beyond supply and demand.
Despite the occasional fatal errors or lapses in the quality of care in the NHS (how my neighbour slid down the sofa is an example of the latter), patients like myself usually don’t get too heavy handed with our criticisms. Overall, the NHS is widely loved and revered by the British public, for without the tremendous efforts of NHS staff, we wouldn’t have pulled through peaks of flu seasons winter after winter, nor could we have survived the epic onslaught of COVID-19 waves. Simply put, if our NHS staff are fallen, so would the NHS, leaving patients to fend for themselves —— a disastrous outcome nobody dares to court with.
It’s my privilege to witness and experience firsthand the professionalism of frontline NHS staff. I cannot thank them enough for the excellent care during my short stay. There’s a saying in Chinese, that “the most beautiful peonies are nothing without the support of a lush foliage”. If the surgeons or consultants were the peonies that often steal the show, then the rest of the team must be the crucial foliage! Notably, not all patients have simple medical histories and diagnoses like mine, and rely on teams of supporting professionals, such as the therapists ——— occupational, physio, pain management, as well as prosthetists/orthotists.
I later found out that many of the staff I met in the ward were seconded there because of how the hospital reorganised staff due to COVID-19. They quickly familiarised themselves with the new environment and performed excellently, so much so that I couldn’t even tell they weren’t regular staff!
What drives our NHS professionals through adversities? What makes them stay? Vocational commitment, I’m convinced. It has to be.