Another sign that the satire industry is under threat;
NURSES want patients who are intent on harming themselves to be provided with clean blades so that they can cut themselves more safely.
They say people determined to harm themselves should be helped to minimise the risk of infection from dirty blades, in the same way as drug addicts are issued with clean needles.
This could include giving the �self-harm� patients sterile blades and clean packets of bandages or ensuring that they keep their own blades clean. Nurses would also give patients advice about which parts of the body it is safer to cut.
[…]
Jeremy Bore, vice-chairman of the RCN�s prison forum, who said: �We should give patients clean blades and a clean environment to self-harm and then access to good-quality dressings.
�My instinct is that it is better to sit with the patient and talk to them while they are self-harming. We should definitely give advice on safer parts of the body to cut. It could get to the stage where we could have a discussion with the patient about how deep the cuts were going to be and how many.�
Via OTB
Wow, what a ridiculous waste of a nurse’s time. What is this world coming to?
I’m speechless. Totally. Whatever happened to the “Hippocratic Oath?”
Well just because your a nurse doesn’t mean your not a moron.
What’s next encouraging suicidal people to use natural gas because it leaves a nice clean corpse.
BTW if you do try to commit suicide with gas, don’t light up a smoke while you’re waiting for the gas to take effect messy, messy, messy.
What everyone needs to understand is that the “nursing profession” has evolved such that it is no longer what you think it is or should be. I have the greatest respect for the traditional bedside nurse; someome committed to providing comfort and care to the sick and injured.
But ever since nursing schools were moved from hospital-based apprenticeships to bacheloriate programs at universities combined with the emergence of powerful nursing unions, their mission has become less about bedside nursing and more about exerting power and control over the health-care system.
Many of the roles formerly fulfilled by nurses are now preformed by nurses aids while nurses themselves have moved into positions in health-care administration, nurse-practitioner and other non-traditional nursing roles.
Often they are in competition with roles traditionaly fulfilled by physicians. Now I have no problem with the idea of the most qualified folks being empowered to deliver health-care but what one finds in the current nursing mantra is that they want to be empowered to make the decisions but without the 24/7 obligation and responsibility. That component they are more than happy to leave to the MD’s.
I have often joked, while observing the devolution of the medical profession and the empowerment of the “allied health-care professions” that Canada ought to do away with medical schools altogether and transfer all of the roles to these other groups.
One of the principal reasons why there is so much resistance to the idea of private medicine in Canada is that the principal stake-holders in the public system, which are the health-care unions and the government appointed administrators are cut out of the loop. You see privates can unite consumers (patients) with providers without the need for these entities which, of course, threatens their newly minted strangle-hold on the system.
I could wax on about this but won’t
Between this and the needle exchange stuff, I keep finding myself reminded of an episode of the original Star Trek series. The inhabitants of two planets at war with each other had decided that the actual dropping of bombs and such was a messy affair that was causing needless suffering, not to mention damaging their respective cultures. So they hit upon a solution whereby they computerized the whole war, and when the computers tallied up the scores of a given exchange of virtual hostilities, all the people in the affected areas were rounded up and taken to disintegration booths. The buildings, art, artifacts, etc., were all left perfectly intact.
Kirk wound up destroying the computer war system, to the anguish of the planets’ leaders, who complained to him that now hostilities would resume in earnest, with the use of real weapons resulting in maimings and destruction and all the other attendant miseries. To which Kirk replied that this was the entire point. By making war so clean and free of muss and fuss, they’d done away with the incentive to find a way to end it, and thus it was that they had been at war for so long, with so many people needlessly fed to the disintegration booths.
Yes, the intention to reduce the harm caused by certain activities is noble and all that. But where the effect is to make the harmful activities ‘safe’ and sanctioned, doesn’t that completely twist around the incentives? Drug abuse is bad. Cutting yourself needlessly is bad. Both should be regarded as being unacceptable and potentially dangerous. How else can you persuade people to avoid taking up these activities, or trying to get out of that lifestyle once they’re in it? I really think that resources are better directed towards dealing with the disease, not its symptoms.
I bow to no one in my disdain for Islamo-fascists.
But do bear in mind that one of the many reasons they hate our society is because of decadent, amoral programs like this one.
My first reaction is that money would probably be better spent on having someone sit down with some of society’s do-gooders and give them a psychiatric test.
Re: JM
Why? In all likelyhood, the very people who made this suggestion are the people giving the test. And since they’re on the progressive side, they’re by defination, nevery wrong.
I take it, then, that none of you have spent any time with someone who has a cutting disorder. It’s not something they can just shake off, you know. It takes years of psychiatric work. They’ve generally gotten that way because of violent treatment as a child – stories that would curdle your blood. The cutting is a relatively harmless way of letting off some pressure – it’s relatively harmless, that is, as long as they have a clean knife and know where it’s safe to cut. Telling them to “stop cutting” will generally just make them find a less safe outlet for their pent-up pressure, such as violent, anonymous, unprotected sex. The pressure builds up when things are “going too good” – they know something horrible is going to happen to them, it always does (they think), everyone knows they deserve it (they think), so maybe by cutting themselves they can put off the truly painful, horrible stuff just a little bit longer. When they cut themselves they get a strong feeling of relief – the blood is under their control this time, unlike the scary stuff that will happen to them as cosmic payback to the undeserved (they think) relative peace they’re currently experiencing.
In short, it’s one of the few things in their scary lives that they feel they have a bit of control over, and it’s not easy to persuade them to give that up. You have to unprogram some mental states that were developed when they were very, very young.
They’re living inside a slasher horror movie in their minds (and sometimes in real life). The rational part of their mind can even recognize how sick this is, but you know that not all of the mind is rational – “knowing” that something is bad for you does not necessarily stop bad behaviours (as you probably know from your own life, if you’re honest about it).
The “clean knife” approach being recommended here is the lesser of two evils. Try walking in someone else’s shoes for a while before passing judgement.
I strongly disagree with this.
Provide them with handguns, so they DIE quickly and stop costing us money, and remove themselves from the gene pool.
Ok. I’m not serious.
They still have straight jackets in looney bins, don;t they?
Sounds more useful to me.
Fred, I completely disagree with your pistol solution. It would be a disgraceful waste of a perfectly good bullet.
Ontheotherhand, your objection is very progressive. How nice for you to be so sensitive. But isn’t this problem the reason anti-psychotics were invented? And isn’t it something of an admission of failure that these patients who ought to be in a controlled environment get access to knives in the first place?
If the patient is cutting himself, that means you’ve screwed up by the numbers as caretaker.
Speaking as a diagnosed schizo, albeit a high-functioning one who hasn’t had a relapse for a while, I’m completely gobsmacked here. When I’m heading towards a relapse and I head to a hospital I’m looking for a safe environment that will protect me from self-harm until I manage to climb back on top of my impulse control.
The health care professionals quoted in this article have no business being part of that profession. Indeed, they should be banned from ever being part of it again.
The saying ‘the inmates are running the asylum’ has finally come true. Un-f###ing-believable.
These folks are not psychotic. They’re not hallucinating. Anti-psychotic drugs won’t help them. Sean, this is not the same thing that you’ve experienced.
Please understand, these people are not attempting to maim or kill themselves, nor are they using this behaviour as a cry for help (e.g. fake suicide attempts). They’re simply trying to relieve some pressure. This behaviour is not by itself serious enough to require admission to a psych ward. It’s really relatively harmless, provided that basic hygiene is followed.
There are some anti-anxiety drugs that can help them, but for those who haven’t found the right mix yet or who are trying to get weaned off it towards the end of their treatment, hey, there are worse habits in life than a little private, controlled cutting of oneself in a place on the body that no one will notice, during a weak moment. It’s less visible to the public than are the results of severe nail biting, which is also a form of self-mutilation.
Their psychiatrist will generally treat the cutting as a symptom, not something to get all freaked out about (which is the lay person’s first impulse). It’ll generally take a few years for the pt to get it under control, while she’s working on a bunch of other, heavier stuff in her life. She may be convinced to take up jogging as an alternative to self-mutilation (but in her heart she’ll sometimes suspect that jogging is only second best). In the mean time, the advice to her is to be honest about the behaviour, recognize it as a symptom not a sin, and when you’re going to give in to the impulse, do so safely.
Oh come on ! This has got to be from the Onion .
do it safely sure and sterilise it yourself chum
This is too weird. First of all I agree with Sean. Something sets off this form of behavior so how about some preventitive medicine? Why do these people cut themselves and not say put a fist through a wall or jump off a building? If a person was intent on cutting themselves would they take the time to get a “safe kit” and if so then why can’t they just use a clean razor blade or disinfect the blade? This bizarre behavior is obviously learned to why not un-learn it or at least redirect the anxiety to something safer?
Wierd, just plain weird.
1 April 2010 For Immediate Release
Doris Mead RN, announced the opening of a chain of clinics to be named Save A Life; Save A Mind. The clinics, recent recipients of a grant from the National Organization of Women, will be staffed by qualified Registered Nurses ready to instruct men in the process of “self gelding”. Gelding is a recognized means to reduce un-wanted pregnancy and the heartbreak of hetrosexual sex.
Sterile blades and antispeptic packs will be available for a small fee.
For those who still wish to be gelded the old fashioned way, the clinics will have lists of abusive women seeking marital partners.
I agree with OnTheOtherHand to a degree. I too know people who do or have cut themselves. Cutting in many cases is a way of relieving the pressure of life. It becomes a habbit so that when any mishap happens in their life they want to cut themselves. Alternatives such as sports, or writing can be found instead of cutting but it takes a lot of effort and time for them to break the habbit of cutting and find a healthier more positive way to relieve stress and anger.
yeah it sure is fun living in a world where nothing is right or wrong. i sure hope that all those “self-harm” patients feel better about there choices at the end of the day. and i can’t see any conflict in doctors and nurses enabling people to harm themselves.
right
LOL. Just had an arguement with my tutor over nursing practice. Altruism is considered a professional value in nursing practice. As a rational human being, I can not for the life of me find value in something that is valueless.
I have decided that I no longer want to be a nurse or a conservative on a university campus.
Tomorrow I am submitting my resignation and I will be re-entering the construction industry.
give them a big carving knife, (a clean one) that will help, NHS no money no doctors, and nurses are very busy, so how can there be people IN NHS with time to give out rubbish advice and when you need an appointment or proper advice concerning self harmong you can’t get one, ring the NHS advice number and wait ant wait, please help people when they need it, with good avice