Hello I'm new to this sub and I would like to apologise in advance if this subject is too off-topic. Anyway, my friend has been working as a nurse for 15 years now and I've noticed a major decline in her mental state. What encouraged me to make this post was a recent event which I still can't fully process. We were shopping for furniture when she got a call on her phone, it was work related. They asked her to come to work straight away on her day off. Despite her agreeing to it I could see the pain on her face. She excused herself and walked off.
Later that night she came home 2 hours later than usual and missed the dinner I dedicated to her as some sort of compensation for working that day. She appreciated the effort nonetheless but that's when I made the mistake of mentioning the trip we had planned for the past few months. In the matter of seconds she broke down in tears and collapsed onto the floor. I never saw her wail like this before. I've known her for nearly 27 years and let me tell you, she's a tough nut. She's the soldier among our circle, the person you call to deal with nasty people. And now that person was laying on the floor sobbing in agony.
So it turns out that earlier that day she was given her schedule and her planned week off had to be cancelled due to a lack of staff. So the trip we had been planning for months was thrown out the window. We specifically picked something relaxing for her to ease her mind from all the work but it turns out that work won again. It was truly heartbreaking to see her like this. After that event she hasn't been the same ever since. I rarely see her smile nowadays. I fear that there is more going on with her that I don't know about but I rather not speculate on the worst case scenario.
I probably don't need to elaborate how stressful the job of a nurse is. It's underappreciated, underpaid, bone breaking, and worst of all overbearing. While average work hours per week are usually 40, her contract puts her hours at 50. If you think that's bad, hold onto your horses. She still has to work additional 4-8 hours depending on specific circumstances, without pay! It's a job nobody wants to do therefore the people who do it get worked like slaves. And guess what the cherry on top is, we have a delusional health minister who is trying to make it even worse. His suggestion to compensate for the lack of nurses is to demand 1-2 additional unpaid work hours from everyone. To put it in his words: “That would already help a lot”. So he is essentially shovelling additional work hours on top of additional work hours.
There is so much I could tell since she has been telling me all her horror stories for the past decade. There is a lot of bullying among the staff too. When she was working as an auxiliary in a different hospital everything that went wrong was blamed on her. A wet diaper left on a bed? Her fault. Sandwiches and coffee not prepared? Her fault. Doctor not receiving blood samples of patients? Her fault. It got so absurd to the point where she filed a complaint to her boss (in the hospital that she works full time) informing him about all that. What happened after that? The boss contacted the staff in her hospital and APOLOGISED in her name, saying that she's sorry for not accepting the 'criticism'. My jaw nearly fell off when she told me that story. To be crystal clear, none of those things was her fault. In fact, she does the most amount of work there.
I don't know what to do anymore. We tried getting her a different job with no success. At this point I doubt it will make a difference too. She has reached a point where therapy is necessary to fix her. I hate to even think about it but it's the sad reality. It's ironic that a person who works to literally aid people is treated like this. I'm seriously questioning what sort of society we live in. I can't put into words how upset this makes me. I hope somebody with political influence sees this and actually turns this shipwreck around.