Nurses at the university clinics in North Rhine-Westphalia have been on strike for four weeks. It’s about money — and better working conditions. Rieke Wens is one of them. She no longer wants to decide which patients she resuscitates and who is deferred.
What Rieke Wens has already experienced and heard during her training as a nursing specialist is shocking – but everyday life on many wards in Germany. In the 287th edition of the “Today important” podcast, she says: “That trainees had to resuscitate themselves because there was simply no nurse who could have helped or that the transport service had to decide which patient was the first to get blood in the operating theatre, although both are in life-threatening conditions… Things like this happen every day on the station.” During the pandemic, triage, i.e. prioritization, was often discussed, but in German hospitals this is part of everyday life – and affects the nursing staff: “It’s a psychological burden that you have to think about which patient has that deserves more now? Is he sicker than the other one? You have to decide that every day and you have to cut back on other patients. You go home with a conscience and you’re never satisfied.”
Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
In addition, there are salacious comments from patients, which Rieke still has to wash and care for afterwards. Complaints to the ward management are mostly in vain, because the problem here is that there is no staff there to swap patients. It is therefore not surprising that around 50 percent of the trainees consider not going into the profession they have trained for, but would rather look elsewhere.
“The reputation of the royals has suffered a lot in the last 3 years”
Also in “important today”: She has traveled to more than 100 countries and, according to estimates, shook hands with more than 10,000 people. Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II is celebrating a centenary this week – 70 years on the throne. And today the big celebrations start. RTL correspondent Katharina Delling reports from London that over a thousand festivities have been announced in London alone: ”You can roughly compare the Queen’s jubilee with when the World Cup is in Germany.” But despite all the festivities, the morning podcast is primarily about the question of how up-to-date the British royal family will still be in 2022. Because the scandals of recent years – the allegations of abuse surrounding Prince Andrew or Harry and Meghan’s withdrawal from the royal family – have left their mark, says Katharina Delling: “In 2021, 41 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds said that they liked their head of state want to vote for themselves. Before the Prince Edward and Harry and Meghan scandals, it was only 26 percent.”
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