The Brits don't wash

Everyone makes fun of the French, especially the Parisians, about their lack of bodily hygiene, but the British are pretty bad as well.

The ward has two bathrooms for 35 patients. The toilets are too small to manovour in a chair on wheels, have no handrails, and it's a bloody circus act trying to help any of the elderly patients a little less nimble. The damn showers are a nightmare as well, with a big step at the entrance which makes it impossible to wheel the chair in.

It's probably just as well as there is no room to move in there even if I did manage to get patient and chair in. Poor Mrs Knight, she hasn't had a shower in the three weeks she's been here. She keeps on washing herself with a facecloth at the bedside every morning. I don't have the heart to tell her she needs a better wash, so instead I said I would take her to the shower.

The pressure is now on. Mrs Knight has just half her foot amputated. The surgeons just cut it off, no stitching together, and every time I look at the foot, it's just a big gaping wound. Can't see it healing, but the doc's obviously know more than me. We made it to the shower, it was a tight squeeze, and even though she nearly tripped over the damn step at the entrance to the shower, she's very happy to be clean at last.

As I couldn't fit a seat in the cubicle, she spent the duration of the shower leaning on me while standing up, holding her foot off the ground. She wasn't even embarrassed to have a male standing there holding her up as she washed herself because she was so grateful to be clean at last. Back at the bedside she kept on thanking me over and over for taking the time to help her.

I didn't actually have the time to spare, it is a busy surgical ward after all, and I have 10 other patients to look after. They're all overdue for thier morning meds. Oh well, I may be late, but I did the right thing. I did the small things that show patients that I care.