A quick break from hiding out in the real world. We had an email recently asking us what Christmas, sorry Winterval, was like on the wards. Apparently a one word response saying ‘fabulous’ was not good enough. Well fabulous for a member of staff, not so certain the same could be said for the clients.
I’ve worked every Christmas day for the last ten years on a variety of wards and enjoyed every single one. I did miss one but I was technically unemployed for 5 days. This post will be a sort of amalgamation of my blurred and confused memories.
Normally staff get the option of working either Christmas or New Year and it normally divides up fairly evenly. The only people that complain are those that have been keeping a running total for the last ten years and always put in their requests one week too late. These people probably get a piece of coal from Santa as a present.
Clients in the community get the dubious benefit of spending Christmas with their families. As anyone knows not always a good thing.
We always tried to discharge, or put on leave, as many clients as possible over Christmas. Occasionally we would provide an excuse for clients that really did not want to be spending Christmas with their families. Having met some families I can see why. The word Schizophrenogenic has rightly fallen out of our vocabulary, but some families and ‘loved ones’ are just simply horrible human beings. Best avoided at Christmas.
The clients that remain normally have very good reasons for being in hospital over Christmas. If they don’t your ward needs better admission criteria or better social services.
I have no idea what it is like to be compelled to stay in hospital for the festive period so feel free to share any experiences in the comments. Please.
Staff though have a fabulous time. We always used to dress up. Antlers, tinsel, sparkly Santa earrings, Sunday best clothes and silly ties. I get my outfit days and days before the big shift. Of course my love of cross dressing seems to have led to some problems recently 
The ward would be decorated to the hilt. Tinsel hanging from every ligature point in sight. Occupational therapy with their dedicated groups of slaves would do us proud. I was always upset when none of the clients dramatically claimed to be Santa Claus and hand out presents. Though some of the manic people came pretty close
The nurses office would be jam packed with chocolates, cakes and … well … nuts. Small presents with cheery little messages like
Thanks for not sectioning me too much this year.
The hospital canteen would put out it’s best spread of the year. Then charge the ward managers and without warning take the money out of the ward budget. There would be cake, sausage rolls and ‘probably pork’ pies. Staff would often chip in to provide a buffet for one and all. Often this would have ‘definitely pork’ pies. There would also be a stick of celery for those with anorexia, a small stick.
Staff would buy presents for their clients. Often small useful things like toiletries, socks (men) or chocolates (women). Chances were if you got three tins of deodorant we were trying to tell you something This of course meant staff would be acting extra mysteriously in the days before Christmas, doing nothing for the clients with more than a touch of the paranoid.
The clients always looked forward to the visit of the nervous looking carol singers.
Seriously we always tried to make Christmas as enjoyable as it could be on a psychiatric ward. Keeping things relaxed and doing our best to help those who did not want to be there. The festive period would bring out the best in the patients. They would support one another , exchange cards and buy gifts. Often they had spent previous Christmas’ together on the ward.
Everyone would sit and enjoy the Christmas movie. For preference one involving Muppets.
I love Christmas and I love it at work.
Mental Nurse
Welcome back, Mental.
Enjoyed my afternoon in work. Over 70% occupancy on Christmas Day. Not shocking but surprising and not a little saddening. There were a number well enough to have taken leave if they had somewhere to go.
Still, we made the most of it. Dancing Santa, sing along with guitar, a communal buffet, the Queen`s speech and dog therapy ( dogs are also beneficial in so much as you don`t have to hoover after the buffet ). A visitor informed me that guinea pigs are also hugely therapeutic ( if there`s an evidence base Malcolm will tell me ). I`d like to do further research and, I strongly suspect, so would my terrier.
I received a lovely Thank You card and another patient commented that we`d made her day. Sometimes all is well in the world.
I am a bit envious of OSB as our ward had rather different experience. We were going to let two patients off the ward for Christmas, but one came back after finding out that the electricity for her flat had been cut off. The other one came back on the Boxing day intoxicated and self-harmed. As this patient got so agitated, other patients wisely retreated into their rooms. Haroperidol IM sorted out the ordeal but the buffet went as quiet as funeral.
It may be a result of the bad plans that was filled with wishful thinking of both staff and patients. A little Christmas present of good luck. Face it, there’s no such thing in our work. I am going to start picking up the pieces again till the day someone might think that I might deserve a card like OSB has received.
Oh don’t. I spent Christmas 1999 in the nut-wing and it was horrible. No calls, no visits, no presents, no cards. I thought my friends and family didn’t love me any more. My only present was a box of soap from the League of Friends. Well-meant, but made me feel like a charity case.
Some four or so years later, having got into remission and picking up the threads again, I found out that:
People had been trying to visit me, and were turned away “she doesn’t want visitors”
People had been phoning about me, desperate for news – one person phoning EVERY DAY – and wanting to take me out for Christmas and other outings. No messages taken or any calls put through to the spare extension.
People sent me Christmas cards – I didn’t get one of them.
At no time did I say I didn’t want visitors. I didn’t want my horrible old Ma to see me, but to extrapolate from that that I didn’t want ANY visitors was absurd.
There may be a logical explanation for all this, but on the other hand……I had a blazing row with my “key worker” a few weeks before that Christmas and made a pretty biting riposte to one of her more asinine remarks. I don’t want to malign people, but I can’t help wondering if this had anything to do with my lonely Christmas?
A work colleague whose background is psychiatric nursing said it’s possible as the profession occasionally attracts the wrong type – those who get off on controlling others. I’ll never know for certain, but it’s a bitter memory.
Tinsel and Father Christmas would have made it all much worse – I wasn’t six years old.
“Tinsel and Father Christmas would have made it all much worse – I wasn’t six years old.”
Sorry, this sounds harsher than I meant it to – it’s just that group jollification is my idea of hell. Especially singalongs as I am a singer and the previous New Year I did a gig in a top London rerestaurant, and was given a roast goose dinner (very nice – first time I’d eaten goose). I found the music therapy group absolute torture as it seemed to rub in what I might have lost forever, listening to a well-meaning three-chord-trick on legs leading the patients in choruses of such gems as “Kumbaya” and “Streets of London”. I was gobsmacked at the latter as several of the patients in the group WERE homeless! He got me to sing “Misty” – I will never sing that damned song again.
On a happier note, the following year found me back in the same restaurant on New Year’s Eve (it was turbot this time).
No, this is not grandiosity but I don’t want my real ID revealed so can’t direct you to my MySpace page. (Musos are the world’s worst for gossip and you can’t show weakness.)