NURSES whose actions saved the life of a colleague who became seriously ill during a night shift have been honoured with an award.
Hazel Farr and Valentien Crook-Jones were named winners at the nursing and midwifery recognition awards held by the city centre hospital trust.
The pair who are both senior nurses at Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI), have additional skills, which were used to provide overnight clinical cover at Bristol General prior to its closure last month.
It was when one of their colleagues became ill that the pair sprung into action, putting their nursing training into practice to help the nurse.
The colleague went on to suffer a cardiac arrest but doctors believe the actions by the nurses meant she made a full recovery and she has now returned to work.
Ms Farr, a nurse for more than 25 years, was covering a shift at Bristol General on November 29 when her colleague complained she was feeling unwell and suggested going home.
"She had said she might need to drive home but I knew she lived quite a way away and I am never happy about nurses going home on their own at night," Ms Farr, 46, said.
"I did the usual observations I would do with a patient and at that point there was nothing remarkable at all it was just instinct that there was something wrong."
Ms Farr called Ms Crook-Jones, who was the clinician in charge at the hospital that night, to the ward and it was decided to arrange for a taxi to take the nurse to the BRI.
"While Valentien was on the phone organising a taxi I noticed that the nurse had deteriorated quite rapidly and realised we needed to call 999 for an ambulance instead," Ms Farr said.
"We put her on a monitor, Valentien did an ECG and put an intravenous line into her. It was almost like we were on auto pilot because we are trained to do this sort of thing."
The incident happened while public sector workers, including ambulance staff, were taking industrial action and it took longer than usual for paramedics to reach Bristol General.
"She picked a very bad day to have a heart attack because of the industrial action," Ms Farr said.
"We phoned 999 for a blue light ambulance and assumed it would be there in minutes but because there were fewer ambulances on the road one had to come from Bath and took 22 minutes, which in retrospect was a matter of life or death."
The nurse was taken to A&E at the BRI where she suffered a cardiac arrest within minutes of arriving.
Ms Crook-Jones, 41, a nurse for 18 years, said: "I think we just thought we were doing our job and were just relieved that she got to A&E. When we were nominated we had no idea we would win an award and were quite shocked to win but it was great."
Ms Farr said: "I was quite honoured to be recognised but also quite embarrassed because it is actually part of our job and that is what we are trained to do.
"There was no hesitation even though it was a member of staff. Adrenalin kicks in as it is a patient at the end of the day."
No comments:
Post a Comment