Spotted in Lyall Bay, Wellington and shared by @2TAPU.
Opinion
Tales from the dark side of nursing
"Nurses are in a unique position," tweets @zozagoon. "We are one of the most trusted professionals. And we build relationships with patients when we care for them multiple shifts. We're some of the only people they see while they're in the hospital, sometimes.
And they're in a sort of vulnerable position that I feel like makes confessions more likely. Plus, nurses are more likely than a lot of professions to be around people when they're altered in some way or another - delirious, or coming out of anaesthesia. Sometimes its quite dark.
"I once had a WWII vet tell me about how he started to drop a live grenade into a baby carriage in Paris because the child was mixed race — both parents were standing next to it. His sergeant stopped him, he said."
Another had an elderly women confess this: "She was a nurse in the 1930s caring for a man dying of cancer who was in a lot of pain. To use her exact words, "he was screaming his way to death" so she and his wife put a pillow over his head and sat on it."
And other nursing staff saw a patient's true colours. "While working in healthcare I managed meds for an elderly KKK member. He called me by a racist slur once. While looking in his eyes I asked if he thought it wise to insult the woman responsible for keeping him alive. We never had any problems after that."
