Posted 12 May 2023 - 05:00
Posted 12 May 2023 - 05:00
News
International Nurses Day: strangest thank you gifts received
Nurses receive odd and amazing gifts from patients and families – but despite good intentions most would prefer just to be able to take regular breaks
Nurses receive odd and amazing gifts from patients and families – but despite good intentions most would prefer just to be able to take regular breaks
Mars bars, mugs with picture of a chief executive’s face and a broken pen in the post are among the strangest gifts nurses have received from both patients and employers.
This International Nurses’ Day (IND), we asked readers what the oddest gifts they received were and we were inundated with responses on social media.
Emma Jane wrote on the Nursing Standard Facebook page: ‘A coffee voucher we could only use at another hospital,’ while Sue Oxton said: ‘I remember one CEO gave mugs out with his photo printed on it, I never received one though.’
Debbie Dimery said she received an orange for Christmas last year from the management at her workplace, while Alice-Anne Bilsby was sent a broken pen in the post. ‘Apparently it was to thank me for being a “hero”,’ she added.
Gifts received by nurses range from champagne and roses to chocolate bars
Nurse Veronica Mavin wrote: ‘We were given Mars bars by the CEO once when working under extreme duress in A&E. We were very tempted to tell him where to put them,’ while others said patients had given them home-grown vegetables including cucumbers and green beans to say thank you.
Nurses also shared some of the nicest gifts they had received, including bottles of champagne for Lisa Griffin from a family whose baby she had delivered and a mix tape from a patient for Emma-Mae Grace Dilkes.
Bonnie Grenham said: ‘The loveliest was a dozen long stem red roses with a personal message to me from the wife of a local councillor who had died of a massive pulmonary embolism.’
Over on Twitter, many nurses reported receiving tea bags and coffee sachets:
Community nurse Ella Patrick shared what she had been given during the pandemic, while another said her ‘gift’ was stolen:
The theme for IND this year is around the future of nursing and how we can preserve the nursing workforce of the future by valuing and respecting those nurses.
Nurse retention has long been a problem globally, largely due to poor pay, working conditions and unsafe staffing.
A review by the International Council of Nurses stressed that without enough investment in well-supported nurses, health systems across the world would not be able to recover from the damage caused by the pandemic.
Nurses do not want empty gestures no matter how well-intentioned if they cannot have basic essentials
Exhausted nurses have previously told us they do not want ‘empty gestures’ in the form of mugs or well-being tents – no matter how well-intentioned they might be – if they cannot have basic essentials like being able to take regular breaks.
On a bigger scale, they want better pay, improved working conditions and for ministers to urgently address an increasingly shrinking workforce.
London South Bank University chair of healthcare and workforce modelling Alison Leary said: ‘It is about retaining nurses for the future, so proper respect, reward and recognition is needed rather than what some might consider gimmicks or empty gestures.’
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