I was so thrilled about today because we went to a nursing home and I have experience doing my clinical rotations in a nursing home back in Arizona, so I was excited to compare the two.
We took a taxi to the nursing home and met with Anthea Reid, the general manager of Robert Harvey House. Anthea was so welcoming and willing to offer the nurses time to help us learn and experience a nursing home. She gave us a quick tour of the establishment and right off the bat I noticed massive differences. First, the residents have a beautiful conservatory to sit and soak in sunlight while they converse or eat lunch. We were then taken outside the back to a little town that resembled old fashion shops. There was a candy shop, a mail shop, and a butcher’s. It was really cute and I’m happy to see that the residents have a little something to keep them occupied if they want to spend some time outside. There was also birds and goats outside. The goats were the cutest little things and they loved the attention. When we toured the inside of the complex, I noticed that the frequent alarm that kept going off was what they considered a call light. It could just be this specific complex, but in Arizona nursing homes and hospitals we use an actual light that is placed above each residents room to signal that they need assistance. Each nurse has a magnet that they use to turn off the call alarms and to open certain doors, while in the States, the nurses can simply press a button to turn off call lights. I think the UKs system is better because their magnets have an assigned number on them to signal who the nurse was that turned the alarm off. I think this is a safety measure and I prefer it.
The establishment has a little dog running around, too. This dog, I believe, is similar to an emotional support pet. He was always showing up in random places to say hello. Anyways, we shadowed the lovely nurse Keke. We watched her help residents take medications and different ways to help them take them, such as through yogurt. She was so funny and genuinely so happy and helpful to answer our questions. Speaking of Keke and her kindness, I noticed that every single nurse in this complex was happy to be there. In the States, it’s pretty obvious to tell when a nurse is miserable and tired, but the nurses here all looked so happy and they were checking on the residents quite often.
We also shadowed the doctor as he went into residents’ rooms and asked them if they were feeling pain or not. The nurse with him suggested certain medications or remedies and he would approve or decline them. He wasn’t there for very long but I could tell that the residents were happy to see him.
I spoke to a few residents and it made me sad how happy they were to speak with us because I don’t know how often they get the chance to have a full conversation with someone new. The residents loved talking about their interests and history. They had so many questions to ask us, too, about America and our health system there. I wish I could talk with them all day.
After the nursing home, we went back to BCU to attend our last two lectures on female health. Our first presentation was about endometriosis. I learned that as it’s more common now, it was considered rare in the 1980s. It affects 6-10% of women worldwide. In the United Kingdom especially, 1.5 million people are affected. It was interesting to learn about endometriosis because one of my best friends has endometriosis and I didn’t know much about it, so I’m happy I get to learn about it on her behalf to understand her a little better.
Our second lecture was from Dr. Jama Egal and it was about female genital mutilation or FGM. This idea terrified me at first and honestly still does. I thought it was a medical procedure done for some health issue but that is not the case. FGM comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. There are 4 types of FGM that comprise of different levels of removal. The first two consist of partial or total removal of the clitoris and partial and total removal of the clitoris and labia. We watched a video from a woman who was forced to have the removal at a young age and how traumatic it was for her as she grew up. This procedure is illegal and I think it should be more enforced and talked about.
Overall, today was a fun day and I appreciate the experience we had at the nursing home. I loved comparing the two and I was able to inform some of the UK nurses about how the States run our system.
