Since I started my shifts as a ward runner I have been keeping a diary of my thoughts and experiences……
Friday 3rd April
“ I had my first shift today at Maudsley Hospital in Camberwell, South London. Ever since I’d been told I’d be working in a psychiatric hospital, I anticipated feeling nervous on my first day but this wasn’t the case. I think there are always certain expectations of the unknown but simply walking through the door showed me, this is a real place, with real people, not anything necessarily to be intimidated by. I was taken round with another volunteer, we went round reasonably casually, and missed out quite a few of the wards, giving me a chance to get used to the new surroundings. The job of the ward runner is very straight forward. WRVS (the charity responsible for the scheme) runs a small shop within the hospital. The shop sells a variety of snacks and drinks such as chocolate bars, bags of crisps etc. The ward runner goes from ward to ward asking the clients (not patients, the people are live in and not suppose to be described as patients), if they would like anything from the shop. The clients are only allowed out at certain points and mostly accompanied, although I think that varies from case to case. So this service provides them with the extra choice of a mid morning snack. They do pay for the items they choose, the ward runner then writes the order down, takes the money and returns to the shop to collect the order and the change.
So this is the process we went through, the very first ward we went on to was the elderly people. I immediately brightened up as going round talking to these clients has been exactly what I’d hoped for when signing up to volunteer. They were all sitting in a circle of seats, like you’d expect in an old people’s home, very inanimately until I would approach them and then they’d sit up and either smile or at least look up at me. One sweet old lady tugged at my dress and told me she liked it, I enjoyed the lack of formality that one would usually expect from strangers.
The other wards weren’t so pleasant, although we only visited one female and one male, the younger clients seemed more shifty, moving around and I had to brace myself to walk amongst them in a locked environment that I had no control over, the only way to leave would be for a member of staff to let me out. I left feeling a little deflated, thinking I wouldn’t be getting much out of the runs as I had hoped.”
Thursday 9th April
“ My second shift today, this time I went around with a different volunteer. Although he had only just started he had a naturally eagerness, that lifted me. He had only done the runs a couple of times himself but had already invented him own system and was already building up relationships with some of the clients. He would boldly approach people that I would cross the street to avoid. At first they would respond in a docile, distant sort of way but with persistence would converse in a way that surprised me, smiling in recognition at little jokes that he made and only one step away from teasing him back. He also happily went to every single ward, not missing out any of the more daunting ones. This meant I experienced the higher security male wards that I hadn’t before. These employ strict rules, women must not, under any circumstance, go in alone and on one particular ward we both had to carry an alarm. I was told later by our project manager that the alarm ward contained clients who had committed sexual assault, I only found this out after I had been round. It instinctively made me resent the clients on that ward, my mind starting imagining what they might have done in the past, what kind of people had suffered as a result, girls just like me or my friends. It made me question whether I wanted to be serving these people at all, although at the same time I reasoned with myself that these men are mentally unwell, they cannot be treated as criminals if their condition was dictating their behaviour. But where do you draw the line? Not being a psychiatrist I cannot fully understand the differences between a sex offender and a mentally ill person that commits a sexual offence. I had a lot on my mind as I left the hospital.”
Monday 20th April
“ Today I did the runs, not with a fellow volunteer, but the project manager. She has been working for WRVS, both at the Maudsley and Holborn for quite some time and is clearly well experienced in handling what the wards have to offer. She left me go round and do the asking. Including one of the male wards, where a male nurse was instructed to go round with me. One client came up too close, he reached out and took my necklace and the nurse pushed him back, I felt a strange mixture of alarm and security that the nurse reacted at such a small movement.”
Friday 8th May
“ I went today expecting to for the first time do the rounds alone. But the project manager was there and said she’d accompany me. I’ve thinking today about the clients having to pay for their own items. It is most likely a good exercise for them to be in control, to a certain extent, of their own money and have the choice about what they spend it on. However, as has happened every time I have worked there, there are always clients that don’t have any money. This often be I think that they don’t literally have any cash, the hospital has accounts for each patient and maybe they are due to be given another allowance, or maybe they have run out. It is hard though for us, to have to deny people snacks when they don’t necessarily understand why they can’t have them. Today an elderly lady asked for a lucazade, I told her the price and she said she’d go to her room to find some money. A little while later she returned with a tube of shuttle-cocks, an earring and some underwear! She handed me the shuttle-cocks and earring. I said thank you but what is this for and she replied “to play badminton with!”. I said it was very kind of her but i couldn’t accept them, especially as the shop certainly wouldn’t accept them in return for the lucazde. She looked a little confused and wandered back to her room. It makes me think at times like this that maybe the clients could have a system where by I can get what they’d like and deduct the amount from the total in their money account. Although they’d still run out so would experience the same problem.”
Monday 18th May
“ I still didn’t do the runs alone today. I went around with the project manager, which I always enjoy, it’s quite incredible to me that she consistently maintains such a lively upbeat nature in what is such a sad place. Today’s run were particularly emotional charged it seemed. As we walked into the elderly ward, one lady was walking around aimlessly, sobbing to herself. Her eye was badly bruised, a new injury. I’ve noticed she often has tears in her eyes but today seemed to be a bad day. My instinct led me straight to her, I asked if I could bring anything to make her feel better, she didn’t reply, just continued to sob and followed me around a bit as I talked to other clients. At one point I approached her again and she held out her hand to me. I’ve been told I should not touch the clients, hug them or really hold their hand. So I didn’t reach back to her, it felt so like I was shutting this lady out, not allowing her to interact with. A nurse did soon come over, put an arm round and mutter into her ear but it frustrated me that I have such an ignorance of any of the clients history and such a lack of knowledge of physciatary that I cannot speak to them. I thought to myself I must sit down with the project manager and find out how much I may talk to people, whether some-one was in particular distress or not. In my position I don’t know how I should react to situations like the lady in tears. I also didn’t know how to react my the shuttle-cock lady from my last shift was also sitting in floods of tears. I sat down next to her and again asked if I could get anything to make her feel better. She didn’t respond, but simply sobbed and in-coherently mumbled something about her husband. I spoke soothingly and she went on sobbing and said “I can’t have a baby, I can’t have a baby…look”, she gestured to her wrist that was strapped to a wrist support, clearly she’d hurt herself. At this point the project manager ushered me away, said that we must be getting on. But I must find out what I can do next time. Should I just listen? Or should I sympathise or is that wrong? For all I know the lady is returning to a past emotion, maybe she wasn’t able to have a child when she was younger, should I bring her forward or talk as thought that is happening now? I’m sure that being un-trained as I am I may do more harm then good but I must find out for sure.”
Ruby
It may be obviously to anyone watching this blog that things have gone a little quiet over the last few months.
