ACLU Sux

Stressed Nurses, Teachers and Police

I am seeing many unhappy nurses. Very often they love their job so why are they unhappy?

It seems the pressure of our society has impacted on the jobs of front line people such as nurses, teachers, policemen and doctors. These people have most contact with those whose lives have become stressed because of a myriad of reasons. So what has changed? There has always been sickness and people with problems.

One of the reasons for nurses, is that once, I know it was a long time ago now but they had the fall back of returning to a supportive environment where they could let off steam amongst other nurses. I am not suggesting we go back to nurses homes because the world has changed and nurses need university training and that would not solve the problem now either. Why not? I know that the police often have very tight social networks to support themselves but their stress levels are increasing too.

The reason is that our world has become so complex.

Not only have these front line people got to deal with people there are now many occasions where drugs brings violence to a new level. There are families so dysfunctional and diverse that you need time and patience to work out who is the most responsible person to contact for the best outcome.

In these professions time is often a factor, there are not many positions that let these people work six hours per day to let them have some balance in their lives. This to me would be an ideal situation where all these front line jobs have a six hour time frame with then a twenty minute wind down at work time which involved a number of options a massage a gym a yoga or meditation class to set their heads apart from the work environment. With the economic crisis this is probably not an option but I feel that our society would benefit from adopting this practice.

Which areas would need this people such as doctors and nurses in emergency departments, police and community child health nurses are entering homes in our communities where there are many unknowns and this underlying job stress filters through adding to subtly impact on their lives without supports and opportunities to have a job change every two years. I wonder how many marriages have ended where their partners absorb all this stress without even knowing it. Many female doctors only work for two or three days I think this is to balance their lives and stress levels.

In looking at options to help these people at the coalface, I feel that shorter working days would alleviate some of the stress along with wind down time, as well as ongoing education and destress options such as meditation, yoga and massage at their workplace.