A Rather Special Day Out by Wendy H. Jones

 

One thing you don't realise when you sign on the dotted line to join the QARANC are the interesting things that will happen to you during the course of your career. I certainly didn't realise that QARANC officers could be called upon to carry out medical cover for royal occasions. You can imagine my surprise then, when I was called up to matron's office to be told I would be spending a day at Royal Hospital Chelsea while The Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, inspected the Chelsea Pensioners. I was to be her personal nurse for the day. To be honest my first thought was, it's a hospital, they must be swimming in nurses, but I was never one to shirk my duties, royal or otherwise. And a day out at the firm's expense, even if I was working, sounded like a jolly good idea.

So, I was picked up by car and duly presented at The Royal Hospital Chelsea where I spent an extremely pleasant day. Of course, I had to be alert for medical emergencies, but the sun was shining I was outdoors in the rather splendid grounds, and the atmosphere crackled with excitement and festivity. It was like spending a day at a gala. The Chelsea Pensioners, resplendent in their red coats and tricorn hats, looked amazing on parade. The Duchess of York carried out her royal duties beautifully chatting to the pensioners and making each one feel like they were the most special person earth. And of course one cannot forget the interior of the Royal Hospital itself which was, and still is, stunning. I am glad to report there were no medical emergencies and I really did have a day out and a jolly nice lunch as well. 

I can honestly say I am glad I was chosen for this duty. It was a special experience of an equally special place and one I will never forget. 

About the Writer

 

Wendy H. Jones served as a Nursing Officer in the QARANC between 1987 and 2004 leaving with the rank of Major. She never went on an operational tour but undertook many exercises as well as serving in numerous units in both the UK and overseas. Hong Kong and Jerusalem had to be two of the highlights. Moving into nurse education, she was proud to have served as Tri-Service Head of Pre-Registration Nurse Education. This brought her full circle to where she started as a student nurse in the QARNNS. She is now an author and lives in Scotland. 

The Advertisement That Changed My Life Path by Moreen Doyle

 Well, here I am again, my blogs or memories are going backwards!! The R in QARANC is certainly indicative of the process. Reminiscing!

The year is 1966. At the tender age of 17, I realise that I want to do nursing as a career! What do I do?  I live on a Scottish island so will have to leave for the city to undertake training, but which one? Would I be accepted having left school without qualifications because I was offered a job working with our local optician! 

I am encouraged to attend for interview at a training school in Glasgow, purported to be the best, although I guess this would be challenged by some! Spending a day there, taking the DC Entrance Test, named after its creator Professor Dennis Child; it was psychometric in nature and covered maths, English and IQ skills. Organised by the old General Nursing Council, now the NMC, it was an accepted route into nursing by many schools of nursing. It was finally abolished by the government in favour of NVQs.

Memories of the day and the classroom of the School of Nursing are clear. I was totally unaware of the whole process or expectations. 'Write an essay on a topical event of the day' or 'your favourite holiday'! Well, we didn’t have many holidays so it had to be topical. I wrote an essay on the Seamans Strike which was happening at the time. My knowledge of this came only from the fact that I lived on an island and the sea was an important part of our economy and lives. Empty shelves in the one and only supermarket! History does repeat itself sometimes!

I was granted a place to commence some six months later but somehow fate played its part when I saw an advertisement in my Mums Womans Own Magazine. QA Army Nursing - 'come and join us', accompanied by a wonderful photo of a Red Caped Nurse. That was it! Job done! That was what I was going to do! A letter of Thank you but no thanks to the said hospital, displeasing my Mother at the time. I think she regretted having that magazine!

Meeting with our lovely recruitment officer, Derek, on the island, amazingly we did have one, he planned an interview in Inverness, a couple of hours train journey away. A lovely old Colonel (probably not so old but we were very young) took us through another DC test.

Three of us, Elizabeth from the north of Scotland and Heather from one of the other islands spent the day learning about the Army and options available. At the end of the day we were all accepted and I was fortunate enough to be able to undertake SRN training as it was then and to commence six months hence. We would have to sign on for four years.

Wow, that is quite a long time! I had better be sure that nursing is really for me! With this in mind I applied to work for six months as an Auxiliary Nurse, then called, at a major hospital in Glasgow where two of my friends worked, not the one I had applied to before!

 I would have to say that these six months gave me an absolute grounding in real nursing care working on a Female Medical ward with amazing staff. The Sister in Charge became my role model for how to be inclusive and how to interrelate with your staff at all levels. It was in the days of Nightingale Wards and 'back rounds' with not a pressure sore in sight. She and I would zip round making all the beds, hospital corners included. Busy, busy times with few staff but somehow the care was excellent. A major learning curve for me and it stood me in good stead for the future. 

Then came the time to head south to join the QAs. It was a bit of a journey! First of all, came the ferry from Skye to Kyle of Lochalse, then the train to Inverness where I met up with Elizabeth and Heather. We were like the three Musketeers heading in the overnight sleeper train from Inverness, excited but with some trepidation. We did not book cabins but shared a carriage, dozing fitfully as we could. Arriving at Euston station pretty jaded, we sat for a while waiting to transfer to Aldershot. I was mesmerised by the number of people scurrying along the platforms like little ants, many in bowler hats, carrying umbrellas! I have never seen so many people! and they all looked the same! It was like a relentless tide! Why the umbrellas! That was a West Highland necessity, surely not London?

 Arriving in Aldershot we found transport waiting for us with a warm welcome, other new recruits arriving in tandem. You could feel the excitement within the little group on the way to the Royal Pavilion which was to be our home for the next four months. I remember clearly driving up the drive with the colourful bushes on each side – a bit like arriving at a stately home.

I was very surprised that we had to undergo another test on the morning of arrival when we were so tired but somehow we survived, or maybe they made allowances for us, I don’t know!

It was new beginnings for all of us and the development of friendships which would endure for the rest of our lives.

  

Moreen Doyle, nee Munro, spent 2 years in student training at BMH Singapore but left theservice on marriage, which was expected at this time. However, the time spent in the service underpinned a lifetime of nursing service in the NHS, specialising in Operating Theatres and Day Surgery and ended her career managing the service in Cayman Islands prior to retirement

HALLOWEEN HORROR IN RINTELN by Eileen Nolan

Now, I enjoy a good scary film as much as the next person. In fact, when I was in my mid- teens, my eldest brother would take me to the local cinema to watch “X” rated horror films. I am not sure how we actually got through the door, but we did, and I remember seeing “The Thing” and “The Drip” at the cinema with him. At home, my parents didn’t mind me watching the Hammer House of Horror films, Edgar Allen Poe, Frankenstein and Dracula. All water off a duck’s back except that I do seem to have an aversion to Bats for some reason! The thing is with these old horror films is that Good always triumphed over Evil so I never lost any sleep over them. That is, until I was posted to Rinteln! 

Let me set the scene…….BMH Rinteln in 1975 was a lovely place in a rural setting. It was a short walk into town and a different short walk to the railway station giving access to all over Germany and even to the Hoek of Holland to get the overnight ferry to Harwich.

It did however, have one drawback that I could see - there wasn’t exactly a lot to keep you busy in the evenings short of the NAAFI bar or going down the bars in town. We had no televisions in the accommodation and even if we did, there wouldn’t have been a lot of point in watching it as there were hardly any programmes in English! We did have the wonderful BFBS (British Forces Broadcasting Service) which entertained us via the radio and on a Tuesday evening, my roommate and I would settle down to listen to the Sherlock Holmes Mysteries. Imagine!

The other thing we did have was Friday Night Film Night in the NAAFI bar. It was the highlight of the week and was always packed. Often, we did not even know what film was being shown and we didn’t really care as it was just a great social event.

Everyone went no matter what rank and even patients who were fit enough were able to go over provided they were back on the ward within thirty minutes of the film ending. That was to try to stop them partaking of the bar of course!! The NAAFI was directly opposite the main entrance to the hospital so not exactly a long walk back to the hospital bed.

Well, October 31st 1975, Halloween night was a Friday and we did not know in advance what film was being shown. I remember several of us second year student nurses going in excitedly and finding good seats. The seats of course were simply individual chairs placed in rows, not the comfy padded seats you get in cinemas.

Then the film started!!!!!! OMG, if you have never seen “The Exorcist”, my one piece of advice to you is…..dont!!!

The film started innocently enough and the theme tune was Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. I loved that music and the first present my boyfriend at the time (now my long suffering husband) had bought me was a cassette tape of the album which I played regularly. 

As the film progressed, there was a lot of squirming in the seats with some people looking for a way out. We unfortunately, were right in the middle and very much locked in and felt we couldn’t go anywhere for fear of humiliation by our RAMC colleagues for being scaredy cats! So, we sat it out and I held onto the fact that all horror films come right in the end and Good always triumphs over Evil! How wrong I was. I won’t give the game away just in case any of you feel you want to see the film after my wonderful review of it but lets just say, I think it was the first of a line of films where my belief in Good triumphing over Evil did not hold true and I can assure you, I have never seen the sequels!

When the film ended, none of us were in any state to go to bed to sleep and that was the night I was introduced to German wine (good old Liebfraumilch – can't stand the stuff now)! My roommate and I had only arrived in Rinteln a few weeks earlier and up until that point, I didn’t really drink alcohol very much but our group of students ended up in one room and we talked and talked into the early hours. No-one wanted to be the first to go to bed and the wine flowed freely I think, in an attempt to dull the memory of that film. It didn’t work of course as forty six years later, I can still remember the film only too well and the thought of it still scares the life out of me!

Oh, just in case you were wondering, my cassette tape of Tubular Bells was never played again and was dumped in the rubbish bin. I did confess all to my boyfriend and he forgave me as he was, and still is a scaredy cat when it comes to horror films, even Watership Down had him gripping the seat!!!!!.

I do still get the shivers when I hear Tubular Bells being played……..!

 

Eileen Nolan       1974-1975  CMH, 1975 – 1977 BMH Rinteln, 1977 – 1978 Royal Herbert and QEMH

                               

The Dynamic Dinosaurs 2021 AGM by Jan Westbury

The Dynamic Dinosaurs, as we call ourselves in the Jurassic Coast Branch of the QARANC Association, met for our annual AGM on Saturday 16th October 2021.

What a treat.  Not only because it was our first face to face AGM since 2019, due to the COVID 19 Pandemic and lockdown restrictions, but the committee had organised a great venue.

This is the view from the Haven Hotel, Poole, looking across to Studland and the Dorset hills in the background.

Coffee on arrival and time to chat and buy from our table sale to raise funds for the branch.  Over a £100 was raised by members who had donated a variety of gifts.  We were also able to distribute the Blog booklets that were printed to celebrate a year of weekly blogs.

What a happy group of branch members and their guests. We are so proud of our flag.

During the AGM, chaired by Marjorie Bandy, while the branch did the work our guests sat outside enjoying the autumn sunshine with a drink.

After the AGM time for a delicious lunch and more chatter.

A lovely way to spend a Saturday and meet up with friends.

COVID 19 - QARANC Student Nurse Clinical Placement Experience by Fiona Farrell

My experience working in a Covid-19 environment has been both very interesting and emotional. I worked on a Covid ward for my first, year two clinical placement. Although the patients were a step down from intensive care, patients were still testing positive for the virus. On the ward, staff wore facial masks and visors and only entering the side rooms did we wear the full Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). I felt very apprehensive, yet a sense of pride, because I was involved in helping patients that were so poorly and unable to communicate effectively.

This was very challenging as I had to put my skills of year one as a student nurse to the test, after all I was an advocate for those who could not speak up for themselves. I felt like I had been thrown in the deep end and counted in the numbers. However, I did not see this as a bad thing, if anything it opened my eyes and tested my skills, I had to use my initiative and take responsibility if I felt something was not quite right, I would escalate my findings and inform the nurse straight away.

I witnessed a lot of people die, which I think I will find the hardest throughout my future career, yet still be able to manage. Finishing one shift and being told at the next morning handover that a patient you were looking after had passed away through the night is hard to hear, even though you did everything you could as a team to save them, but just wasn’t enough, it is heart-breaking. However, what I took away was, we gave the patient the best care that we could and made that patient comfortable. They were not alone, as their relatives were by their side as they passed away peacefully. The most comforting thing I found, which may seem morbid to some people, was performing the last offices. I think that it is an honour and a privilege to be the last person with the patient to say a final farewell to them.

I had the first vaccine and within a few days started feeling unwell. I tested positive for Covid-19 and was ill for 3 weeks. It was very frightening because I felt extremely vulnerable and also felt in the same shoes as the patients I was looking after a few days before. This experience has taught me not to take things for granted, even though the majority of cases were elderly people, I am young and still contracted the virus. Luckily, I was not hospitalised.

I think that this pandemic has changed all our lives forever. It has shown us that as a human race how adaptable we can be.

Studying from home was difficult, having lectures over MS Teams meant that sometimes the connection was poor and I had to go back and watch the power point presentation again. I felt that there was not the same interaction that is experienced sitting in the lecture theatre together, such as bouncing ideas off each other and just having human interaction in general. On the plus side cups of tea were not on short supply. Living on my own through this pandemic has been lonely yet has built my resilience. I will be looking forward to going back to university and studying alongside my peers again and getting back into a regular routine.



- Pte Farrell Intake 01/19

Covid 19 A QARANC Student Nurse’s Experience by Bethany Neame

After many years of attempting to get into nursing, having undertaken an access into nursing course, retaken my maths functional skills course and completed my basic training, what seemed the impossible finally happened and I moved into my university accommodation ready to start the 3 year nursing degree. However, just 8 weeks into the course the global Covid 19 pandemic hit and we were sent home. As first years we were pulled from all placements as we were deemed more of a burden to mentors and wards who supervise and look after us.

After almost a whole year of waiting we were finally allocated 8 weeks of clinical placement at the end of our first year. No amount of preparation can prepare you for your first big day on your ward. I had visited the week before with another fellow nursing student I knew was on the same ward so I knew where I was going on my first day. I had called up and introduced myself, got my shifts for that week and found out who my mentor was, but the moment I arrived I felt totally lost. I had no experience of working on wards and in hospitals before, so I hopelessly followed my mentor round to the morning handover, but didn’t understand a single word. Only that on the night shift a patient had died and we were waiting for the porters.

I hadn’t been on placement during the first wave, but I was told in the second wave there were a lot more deaths, so the porters were always very busy and often late, so we would find ourselves struggling for bed spaces when we were waiting for a patient to be collected after they died. This ward was previously an elderly care ward, but in the pandemic, it became a closed Covid positive ward where elderly would go if they were Covid positive or to complete their isolation before they were discharged. Unfortunately, many didn’t often survive to be discharged.

After a few weeks of clinical placement, I began to understand how the ward ran from an HCAs perspective, but didn’t manage to get much time with my nurse mentors as it was always so busy. Almost every handover reported a patient loss and I finally had my first experience of doing the last offices. Previously I had been a carer for 9 years, but I never saw or experienced any death, I thought I would be okay but in that moment I found myself thankful for having a face mask to cover my quivering chin and a visor to hide my glossy eyes.

My mentors were good with checking on me but for the most part I found myself mostly left and lost, unsure of what to do and stressed about getting my competency book signed. As our only clinical placement for our first year in nursing, we had our entire book of competencies to get signed in such a short time frame. Plus, I then found myself needing to isolate for 14 days following exposure to Covid. I attempted to plead my case that I worked on a Covid positive ward and that was a lot more exposure. However, that didn’t matter, and I completed my 14 days isolation and lost two weeks’ worth of clinical hours that I will be required to make up in my third year.

After my isolation was finished, I felt deflated and didn’t really want to continue but I knew I had to complete it to pass first year. The first handover back every single patient was different, and it was like starting brand new again. I am thankful for the other student nurse on my ward as it was nice to have someone to voice concerns to and talk about our days too, I think this really helped us both get to the end.

I finally manged to get some time with my mentors to sign my book and it was such a relief to have passed despite losing two weeks of hours and the it only clinical time in my first year.

I look back on my time on the ward as a real eye opener to the struggles of working in a busy hospital ward and commend the way all the staff conducted themselves, no matter how busy or stressful in such a demanding and uncertain time. I never could have predicted that I would be working on a Covid ward through a global pandemic in my first year but I gained valuable experience and insight through being thrown in at the deep end.



Pte Bethany Neame Intake 01/20

Pandemic Life for a QARANC Student Nurse by Kathleen McAuliff

The first outbreak of COVID19 and consequently the changes that followed in 2020, brought a lot of excitement initially. It can be compared to the excitement when you wake up on a snowy morning and listening out for your school on the radio, in the hope that you get a snow day off. However, the reality settled in when it wasn’t just a three-week break from academic work, but a global crisis that resulted in a vast amount of misery, but also triumph. Documented below are a few of my personal experiences from the past 18 months.

University work

- Online lectures were PAINFUL in the beginning. It was very difficult to sit through a lecture with 100+ people who all had a different knowledge of technology. The constant interruptions with people not knowing how to mute their mics was so frustrating and made me disengage with the live lectures.

- However, as time went on I was able to start to appreciate the leisurely life of online university work: not having to set my alarm super early for the commute in, engaging in content at my own pace and taking my dinner break when I wanted! Now, I prefer online working and hope it will continue into the rest of my 2nd year and 3rd year!


Clinical Placement

- Clinical placements for 1st years was delayed, so it was crazy to know that the first time I had contact with a patient was 10 months into the course. It was a little daunting at first. I was placed on a ‘hot’ section of the ward, which meant that these patients were COVID positive patients. Throughout the shift full Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) was required for any patient care/interaction and I had to do a full change between patients. This could be time consuming and I developed contact dermatitis from the continual hand washing. Sometimes I would even leave the hospital with marks on my forehead from the visors. Everyday was different, with protocols changing all the time as our understanding of the virus increased and it really highlighted how much communication was so important with one another.

- The pressures that the staff were put under to work in these environments was daunting to watch, but it also showed to me the true characteristics of what it takes to be a kind human in the face of adversity and gave me insight into the person I want to grow into.


Pte Kathleen McAuliffe Intake 01/20