Every morning the doctor does rounds and during these rounds he opens and inspects wounds and leaves them open then goes on to do the same to the next patient and so on. Open wounds are covered with a sterilized green cloth. This cloth makes it harder for a patient to move around more especially if its on a larger area of. Our main aim of treatment an physiotherapist is to get the patient to be as mobile as possible, whether it being in bed or ambulation. This green cloth makes it quite impossible for us to do our job. Many days this happens and the patients lie in their beds the whole day because of their wounds being open.

One morning the doctor went on his usual rounds and opened up everyone’s wounds in the ward. This became a challenge for me because 4 out of my patients had their wounds open. The doctor was nowhere to be found and the nurses kept ignoring my request to have the wounds dressed so that I was able to give my patients treatment.

I experienced a lot of helplessness on this day. As a student or even as a physiotherapist it is not in our field of study to be able to dress wounds and because of the lack of knowledge in that are I was unable to do my job ethically and professionally in the hospital setting.

What striked me the most out of this day was the fact that I felt that the nurses had a bad attitude towards me asking if they could do their job, even though I asked in a respectful manner. Te fact that they were asked by a mere student striked a nerve. I imagined them telling each other how a mere student asked the to do something they did not want to do. This feeling may have been wrong and judgemental but that is how I felt about the situation

Without being the only person who has had problems with nurses, I have heard stories form other colleagues and patients reporting that not all but majority of the nursing staff in the hospital setting have a bad attitude towards people who need their help. This is a basic human rights violation because it is robbing the patients of proper health care and ethics and professionalism violation.

Nurses are bound like other professionals to a shared set of behaviors, values and attitudes that are conductive to a professional environment. The values are necessary to integrate caring behaviors towards patients and members of the health-care team.

According to WHO, patients rights vary in different countries depending on the prevailing local cultural and social norms. For instance, the informative model in North America and Europe sees the patients as a consumer who is in the best position to judge what is in their best interest, and thus views the health care staff mainly as providers of information. In contrast the, the service provider in Africa is still regarded as an authoritarian benefactor, while the patient is considered vulnerable and expected to be subservient.

The need to recognize, guarantee and practice patients rights has been reaffirmed through the ratification of international documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). research findings, however, indicate that nurses routinely engage in acts that hamper the realization of patients rights. This renders the patients less empowered to participate actively in the nursing experiences.

Reading

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21178193