All Nurses Need to Care

Caring is important in building patient-nurse relationships. Nurses, who take the time to get to know their patient, are show respect and understanding toward their patient’s cultural beliefs. Therefore, patients are more open minded and trusting toward their healthcare providers. “A caring relationship establishes the conditions of trust that enable the one receiving care to accept the help offered; underpinning the nurse-patient relationship or the therapeutic relationship” (Warelow, Edward, & Vinek, 2007, p. 147). When a nurse is caring for a patient, he or she is taking into consideration the whole family as well. In addition, a caring nurse always sees the patient as a whole. One important point for a nurse to know is that one should do for others what one would do for themselves.

Caring for an Alzheimer’s Patient

Caring for a family member with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) can be very stressful and frustrating. In Durham region, when a person is diagnosed with AD a social worker from the Community Access Centre is able to locate healthcare services for Alzheimer’s patients. For instance, there are home care services, day programs, or long-term facilities that can assist the patient to help take the stress off the family member caring for Alzheimer’s patient. Furthermore, home care services and day programs are recommended for patients in the first stage of AD. Patients, who are in their late stages of the disease, are usually admitted within long-term care facilities with 24 hour supervised nursing care.

After-hours Triage Nurse

The use of a nurse telephone triage after-hours service in Australia, has helped take the pressure off general practitioners. The GPs transfer their office telephone numbers to a 1-800 after-hours number. When a patient calls a practice after-hour the call is automatically connected to a trained telephone triage nurse located in a rural hospital (McGrath, & Macdonald, 2008, p. 786).The nurse takes the patient’s details and assesses whether the patient requires a nurse’s advice, an ambulance, or a local medical appointment for the next day. However, the triage nurse is not allowed to make a diagnosis over the phone (p.787). The service receives an average of 2573 calls a year.

We Need More Nurses in Ontario