2024-03-01 07:11:24
In the book, you describe the stories of 27 nurses who experienced workplace bullying. The stories are from the hospital environment, ambulatory care and homes for the elderly. How did you get these stories?
I wrote a post in the three largest groups on Facebook, and women gradually started contacting me. They also started to discuss the topic of bullying among themselves in the comments on my post. Sentences such as: “We all know this is happening, and nothing is being done about it” often appeared. A total of 66 women and one man contacted me, but he subsequently became silent. I chose the resulting 27 stories based on how well I communicated with the women and how willing they were to open up about their stories.
What forms of bullying did the women confide in you about?
They were given meaningless tasks, other sisters slandered them, invented intrigues. They isolated them from other female colleagues, they did not want to accept them into the collective. One of the women was even accused of stealing medicine and the head nurse searched her personal belongings. Nothing was found with her. In the end, it turned out that this “house” was planted on her by the other sisters in order to get rid of her. The woman in question was popular with patients and their families, and the other nurses were jealous of her. She learned exactly how it was from one of her former colleagues two years after leaving the department. Another woman was deliberately delayed at work by the other nurses so that she could not catch the connections home on which she was dependent. So she had to stay in the department and help them for several hours until the departure of the next train. 12-hour shifts became 16-hour shifts.
Do these stories have anything in common?
None of the women knew who to go to, who to confide in. They were afraid that no one would believe them. If they turned to a superior, they were told to resolve it between themselves. At the same time, they all mention that being a nurse was their dream job, which they wanted to devote themselves fully to, and which for this reason disappointed them greatly.
Envy and burnout
The women in your book also often describe that the aggressor was an older, more experienced, perhaps two generations older, superior nurse or colleague…
Yes, the older sisters perceive the younger, newly arrived after school sister with energy and ambition as competition. The second aspect is burnout, which is often experienced by women who have worked in the same department for 20 or 30 years. But that still does not entitle anyone to humiliate another. I myself have been in the field for 20 years and I know that I cannot ask girls who come out of school to know and know everything. The school prepares them mainly theoretically. When new nurses come to the ward, they should have someone on hand who can easily show them ten times how to do the given task and familiarize them with how things work in the ward. We all know that there are few health workers, that nurses are overworked, so I don’t understand why even more experienced nurses throw sticks under the feet of newcomers and prevent them from joining the team.
You mention burnout. Isn’t the fault also in the very setup of the healthcare system?
I don’t think it’s about the system, but about each person. I also know nurses who have thirty years of experience and are nice, educated and happy to share their experience. Yes, there is a shortage of staff, whoever says what they want. It is another thing to sit in the House of Commons and manage health care by numbers and to be in a ward where you have 30 difficult patients and you are taking care of them in two. Then you really don’t see some patients all day. This was, among other things, the reason why I left the hospital, because I wanted to give everyone the same care. But it is important to realize that you are responsible for your own life and how you relax. It’s important to learn ways to turn off your head, disconnect from work, and re-energize. A lot of people can’t do that, they just lie at home on the couch at the weekend and wonder what will happen on Monday.
I didn’t know who to turn to
I was interested in the story of Martina, who mentions that she was a victim of bullying at the age of 20, but when she returned after eight years of maternity leave, she no longer liked such treatment. Do you think it is important to be able to object and speak up?
Certainly. However, it is logical that when you are 20 and starting your first job, you are often quite shy, unsure of yourself and don’t know what to do. For example, I was shy at all to knock on the door of the room, enter and say hello. I was constantly thinking about what questions to ask the patients. The older and more experienced you are, the more confident and hardened you are. But the second thing is that when I started working, no one told me who to contact if I had any problems. And that’s a big problem, nurses don’t know who to go to in case of bullying, and if they do go to someone, they often turn them away. Hospitals have intranets where employees can find a form designed to report such behavior. But each facility has it differently, some hospitals may not have such an option at all.
Do you think that today’s young sisters are, as you say, “tougher”?
Yes, today’s young sisters are more hardened and say what they want. For example, that they want to work on an agreement and that they will not work three shifts in a row. I think that everything in moderation is good. Being able to tell myself what I want and also speak up when I don’t like something. But at the same time, not to promote yourself, not to be rude and not to humiliate when someone is older, younger or does not have the education or experience that I have. It is not a rule that the aggressor must be the older sister.
I dreamed about her every night
The women in your stories also describe subsequent psychological problems and physical consequences. You experienced bullying seven years ago and the year before last in your penultimate job. what was going on
Compared to the stories in the book, I experienced mild bullying. I don’t remember exactly how the bullying took place seven years ago, because I closed it in myself as rude behavior towards my person. Today, thanks to everything I’ve experienced and heard, I judge it as bullying. Unfortunately, the two sisters behave practically the same today. Another experience was with the head nurse in 2022. The thorn in her side was probably the fact that I was friends with her superior, whom I knew from my previous job. She also couldn’t stand it because she wanted “a lot of work”, she probably wasn’t used to that much before.
What exactly happened in your case?
The person humiliated me, slandered me and called me things that were not true right in front of my eyes and behind closed doors. I’m quite a strong person, something doesn’t just throw me off. But even a strong individual can be bullied. Every day I wondered why I was lying in her stomach, I even wrote her an email to which I did not receive any reply. I dreamed about that person almost every night. When I went to work, I was already sweating on the tram and my heart was pounding with nervousness.
How did you resolve the situation?
At one point I said to myself that if he doesn’t want me here, I’ll go. But women who work in a small town have it much worse. When you have one hospital, background and family, you don’t want to change your whole life just because someone is “busting” you at work. It also helped me a lot to realize that it was her problem and not mine. I didn’t do anything wrong to anyone. The problem is the aggressor pushing something into you, not you. This is terribly important for women who have experienced bullying to realize.
With hindsight, I see this experience as positive, because thanks to it, I went back years ago, when my colleagues and friends confided in me that something like this was happening to them. I didn’t attach any importance to it at the time, because I didn’t want to believe that something like that could happen in the healthcare sector, where we help other people. But my own experience has shown me that it is a reality that no one talks about, that nothing is done about it and that I want to write about.
The sisters doubt whether to continue their studies
Do you think bullying is the reason why there are fewer nurses?
I think that’s a big reason. Sisters don’t want to be in something like that. They’d rather go to Billy’s, where they’ll have peace, than be at work, where no one appreciates them and they’re still being stepped on. I even dare to say that this may be one of the main reasons why new nurses are not coming into the system. Already during her studies, she can see how other nurses behave in their internships. And not only to them as students, but also to each other.
Girls who are in high school or high school often write to me asking how this is possible and doubting whether they should continue their studies. Experienced nurses, on the other hand, are often so physically and mentally exhausted that they leave altogether rather than try elsewhere. It is not easy to straighten your mind after experiencing bullying. When you experience something like that for a year or more, you don’t want to be in that kind of environment anymore.
Now you work in a private clinic, do you feel any difference?
It is a big difference. In the private sector, after all, the management tries to prevent anything like this from happening. However, this may not be the rule. Also in the book is the story of a nurse who worked at a private dentist and his wife bullied her into cleaning the dentist’s chair with a toothbrush. For me, the team is really the foundation. When the staff is cool, you will look forward to work. I don’t know about many people, but I want to go to work where I enjoy it. Not in an environment where I should experience such actions and subsequently psychological problems.
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