Iain Rennie nurse: Christmas can be "so sad" (From Bucks Free Press)
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Iain Rennie nurse: Christmas can be "so sad"
8:00am Monday 26th December 2011 in Cookham By Rebecca Cain
Ginny Allen
A COMMON misconception of Iain Rennie nurses is they are "hardnuts", said one nurse Ginny Allen, but if that was the case they would be in the wrong job.
Because for the nurses, who help people spend their last days at home, it does not get any easier and Christmas time makes it all the more sad.
Ginny, 44, has been working for Iain Rennie Grove House Hospice Care for nine years and was brought up in High Wycombe and trained as a nurse at Wycombe Hospice in 1989.
She said two nurses are working on Christmas day, with the day making it "so sad" if a patient dies. She said: "People never forget it. Every Christmas you know that is how their Christmas Day will be remembered for ever. We hope they don't remember it too strongly for ever like that."
But, she said, there can also be happy memories and she reminds families that they managed to look after their loved one at home until they passed away.
Iain Rennie Hospice at Home was founded in 1985 and this year the charity merged with Grove House, which Ginny said gives both charities a bigger voice.
She is a clinical nurse who is part of the Wycombe team, of which there are eight people. There are four other teams based in south Bucks and up to Hertfordshire.
The nurses carry out routine visits each day but are also on call for more urgent calls.
Ginny said they provide pain relief to patients and also sometimes they simply need to make people aware that their loved ones are near the end of their journey.
She said: "We have to have very difficult conversations with people about whether they are aware patients are near the end of their life."
Since she started, the case load for the Wycombe team has risen from 20 to 25 to 65 to 85 patients.
She said since April, compared to last year, referrals have gone up 13 per cent so needs to increase all the time. They rely on people donating money.
Any one can be referred to Iain Rennie. Referrals go to the control office at Florence Nightingale Hospice. The referrals will be assessed to see which is the most suitable service for the patient- some might be more suited for Macmillan or for the day hospice.
Ginny said even though they are lone workers out in the community they are a really tight team who are there for each other.
She added: "I have recognised a patient is dying and the family haven't- a person who is sometimes a complete stranger has to tell them and that is so hard and really sad.
"I think people assume if you do this job for nine years you are a hardnut. If I was I am in the wrong job. You can be in a patient's house and it can be the saddest thing. You are very honoured to be allowed to be in their private home."
She said she keeps it together for the family but sometimes she will go out to her car and cry.
The Holmer Green resident has strong support from her husband, Mark, and tries to keep her mind off the job when she is at home, which she said is very hard, but which she finds easier with the help of her pet toy poodle, George.
When patients die their family do not need to call an ambulance, but can call the nurses who will come and complete a verification of death so a GP does not need to be called. The nurses are in no rush and can help the families with the next stage.
Ginny said both her parents died in hospital and she would have liked it if they had the opportunity to die at home.
She said: "You meet the most amazing families. Every day is different. The hardest thing any one can ever do is look after someone you love before they die. I have got the easy bit as all I do is go in and advise and help."
For more information go to www.irhh.org
Comments(2)
Sanders the Telephone Butler
says...
11:08pm Fri 30 Dec 11
It would be foolish for Iain Rennie nurses, or any other medical professional, to become strongly emotionally-attached to terminally ill strangers, but when they helped me and my family during my mother’s last illness at the age of almost ninety, two years ago, I found them to be far from hard – they were respectful and compassionate towards my mother, and the rest of our family, as well as practical, knowledgeable, intelligent, and sometimes, on suitable occasions, humorous as well.
Until I met Iain Rennie nurses on that occasion it had never occurred to me that dying is something going on all around us - everywhere, all the time - just like birth and all the stages of life from the moment of birth - and that we need professionals to deal with the stage where people’s lives end, just as we need midwives and obstetricians. We prefer to ignore dying however, or to imagine it as violent death or dramatic death on television. When my mother was dying of cancer, I had no idea what to do and experienced events and emotions I knew nothing about, but Iain Rennie nurses came every day and helped her in ways that it would be inappropriate for a middle-aged man to do even if I had known how. They warned my brother, my sister-in-law and me, what to do if she should die suddenly. After the long-expected minutes - at the end of a beautiful summer evening - when my mother breathed irregularly and then ceased breathing, I was told what to do on the phone by an Iain Rennie nurse, a Geordie called Raylene. I was utterly at a loss but this lady told me to phone the funeral undertakers after a certain time and when she arrived at the house, after consulting with me she went on her own and detached my mother from her life supporting equipment and prepared her for the funeral undertakers, asking me how my mother should be dressed and what should be done with personal effects still on her, like her wedding ring. She then stayed with me until some time after my mother was taken from the house and she was satisfied with my state of mind.
Iain Rennie nurses are the professionals who help us at the final stage of our lives. Their practical and professional knowledge of what to do when someone is dying or has just died is a great benefit to individuals and our society as a whole and they deserve our admiration.
readerabc says...
4:10pm Wed 28 Dec 11
sad that they have to fund raise for so much as they get little government funding