Audio recording transcript – Teresa Jarosławiec, nurse

Everyone thinks you get into it because of a calling or something. It varies, people choose it for different reasons. I thought it was one of the best professions, one that’d always give you a job, you know? You were guaranteed work after graduation. My father actually suggested I go to nursing school, because being a nurse is a really good and necessary job. He’d been in a sanatorium and he really liked what they did there (laughs). But of course not all of us would end up working in a sanatorium, right? Still, it was very much needed. You helped patients, you know, in all sorts of matters, situations, illnesses.

I worked in the hospital in the operating theatre, I was a scrub nurse, you know. Preparing things, cleaning up, handing instruments during the procedure, all that. Working with patients came afterwards. I spent almost 14 years working in the operating theatre. At that time, you had to go in for caesarean sections, for gynaecological procedures. Surgeons did the gynaecological operations together with the gynaecologists, and on top of that there were orthopaedic procedures as well. Now they’re not allowed to do that, the orthopaedic surgeons have to do it. Back then the surgeons did everything. The scrub nurses had to assist in the gynaecological procedures too, which meant going to the other block, you know. You’d be running up and down the stairs, day or night, to the gynae theatre and then back to the surgical one. And on top of that you had to do dressings and deal with the surgical outpatients as well. They don’t have that now; back then you had to do everything. The methods of treatment were different, and there were different patients too.

Some appreciated our work, and others… well, some of the older ones thought they were entitled to everything. And some patients had a bad opinion of healthcare in general, of nurses’ work. I won’t even go into that (laughs). Some spoke rather badly. And of course nurses were different too. One was, you know, better with patients, and others were a bit snappy and shouted a bit. Well, maybe not shouted, but… A nurse had to do everything the doctor told her to do, you know. Once a gynaecologist actually hid an instrument from me. He wanted to check if I’d counted all of them. He pinned it to the sheet under the operating table. And we searched and searched, it was some sort of night-time procedure, probably a caesarean. And he wanted to know if we’d find it or not.

It was much better at the beginning. Sometimes when they brought in lots of people from accidents – sometimes children – those I felt most sorry for. Things like burns, there were a lot of such injuries. After New Year’s Eve, for example, hands all cut up – there were lots of such cases. Later those patients would come for dressings. Everything was in the outpatient clinic. First it was the surgical outpatients, then it was moved to the main clinic… all the outpatients came to the surgical clinic, you know. And the children – poor things.

With the doctors it depended what sort of doctor it was. One was decent and respected you, another was snappy and would shout at you or whatever. But generally we got along with them somehow. Not all of them respected us, though. Some of the younger doctors – and you had to say ‘sir, doctor’, and he’d call you by your first name, being years younger than me. Not all of them, but… Female nurses have a better approach to patients. Most of them anyway. Many nurses are really in it because of a calling. Men, well, I don’t think they’re made for it (laughs). Women are better because they’re more caring, and men generally aren’t. They’re more for helping physically, like lifting a patient, turning them over, you know. And a nurse has to wash them, change them, you know, if someone’s bedridden. It’s necessary work, and there are fewer and fewer nurses now, and fewer schools that train them. There are no nursing secondary schools anymore. You did what you could, really – you talked to them, comforted them a bit. Sometimes you could give them something, give a child a bandage, or a sterile syringe, you know, in wrapping. We didn’t really think about ourselves, not at all. You thought about the patients, not about yourself.

Sometimes they came in shouting. Sometimes they came in drunk – oh, they’d shout and complain, in the clinic as well, something was always not to their liking, or the queue, or someone went in first and someone later – and there were the outbursts, you know. And sometimes you had to, you know, slip someone in just for a dressing so the doctor wouldn’t notice. And then you’d get it from both sides – from the doctor and from the patient – because the doctor would start shouting, you know. What were we doing, why had we taken someone earlier, that sort of thing. Well, you could take them quickly for a dressing, but it wasn’t up to us, the doctor had to decide, not the nurse. And you couldn’t say a word to the doctor; then after a moment everything calmed down. The doctor let it go once he saw you weren’t answering back (laughs), because, you know, he was in the wrong. And then later he’d need something, and you know, the nurse was needed again for something. For the next task he should’ve been doing, but actually we were the ones doing it. Like putting on plaster casts – that should’ve been done by the doctor, but it was us, the nurses, who did it.

Someone has to go into nursing, because the population is ageing, you know. There are more and more elderly people, and the young ones don’t want to go into these schools because they know what it means. Patients react differently, you know, and… well, some were grateful, they said thank you, sometimes someone brought coffee or chocolates (laughs). Some patients are pleased when pretty, young, slim girls come in. They feel better straight away and recover faster (laughs).  And if she smiles, chats a bit, makes a joke – well, that happens too. I really did love my job.

Audio recording transcript – Krystyna Połom, nurse

My name is Krystyna Połom, I’m 94. I spent 11 years working in Kocborowo, in Starogard, and 31 years in Srebrzysko [locations of 3 mental hospitals]. What broke my heart most was when they brought in 10-, 12-, 15-year-olds. I took it very hard, even though they weren’t my own children, but in this job you’re not supposed to cry… Yet cry I did, not just me – the doctors did too. You have to be tough, you have to care for the patients. A patient mustn’t see you sad. Because they… If the carer, the sister, the nurse is sad, crying, with tears running down her face… What’s going on? They immediately start asking.

I ran the children’s ward. It’s terrible. You need to know a bit of psychology to know how to act. You have to remember what you said yesterday so you can repeat it today. And you’ll need to repeat it the next day or the day after, because the patient isn’t stupid. Men don’t like hard work. And this is a very tough job. It was an Englishwoman who brought the nursing profession into the service of humanity – because before that it was simply a service. You worked 24 hours a day, you slept alongside the patients. That’s how it was after the war, in psychiatry.

I’d come to work, and first of all you had to set out the medicines. Measure temperature, blood pressure – that was important. And hand out the food. After breakfast, give the medication. And then procedures – dressings, massages, going to X-ray, doing pneumoperitonea or forensic examinations, because it was also a ward with patients accused of crimes. Or you were waiting for a professor’s visit, for a ward round.

A patient jumped out of the fourth floor and killed himself – that happened to my colleague from on another ward. There were three of us who wanted to leave after that. And we had good jobs, very good jobs. But, you know, the doctors called us in, the director explained, pleaded with us. And so we stayed. I think I went to the director 5 times after that event, to talk, because he didn’t want me to leave. ‘Where will you go? Where will you earn more? Where will you have it better? Who will respect you like we do?’ I was afraid – we worked on the fourth floor, and we didn’t have bars. Hospitals always used to have bars on the windows. And then they made it the English way, with no bars. They’ve put them back since.

They didn’t only listen, they asked questions, talked to us. Invited us into the office, whether they were writing up the patients’ medical history, notes from treatment or something. It wasn’t just me, it was the same for all the nurses. We had respect, every one of us, even towards the ward nurses. We’d even call the ward nurse for coffee if we were having coffee with the doctors. You know, so as not to humiliate them that we sit separately, you sit separately. No, no, no. In the years I worked, it was still like after the war – everyone was respected.

I ran insulin coma therapy. And when my patient came to see me after 16 years, that was my greatest joy – that my work had made a difference for 16 years. Because some patients came back after 6 months. Some, you know, their illness returned, and they came back again. They just weren’t taking their medication.

Do you think we didn’t cry when Krzysiu jumped from a train near Wrocław and killed himself? He was 28, an engineer. Our patient – handsome, beautiful young man. He talked to me, called me. He gave me a book, and said, ‘Sister, I’m riding the tram, and out of nowhere I snap– I shout, I tug at people. Do you think I’m not a human being? I know exactly what’s happening to me’. But he couldn’t control it. Patients would sometimes visit me, bring presents, flowers. Yes, I really liked my job. Oh yes.

They taught us at school that before opening the door you had to tell yourself: ‘Keep your lips sealed and don’t say too much’. It’s psychiatry, you know. Let me tell you a story. Four militia officers brought in a patient. I was the one who opened the door. I had night duty. They took off his handcuffs and pushed him in. And the patient turns to me and says, ‘Sister, we’ll manage. Let those coppers go’. That was the biggest incident in my career, because there were beatings and all sorts of things, you know. Their passions – tying them down, restraining them. You know what psychiatry was like. Some patients were restrained for weeks in straitjackets. When I worked in Kocborowo, there was a 15-year-old girl, she screamed that I had no education, no sense, didn’t know what it meant to be young. And she bit me. I had the mark for about 20 years. You know, here, she bit me here on the breast. But apart from that, no – that was the only time in 40 years. The doctor phoned to say she was very wild, very loud, very excited, that it would be difficult. But there were two of us nurses, and four militia officers. And somehow we managed. She later became close to me, you know? A sort of friendship. That Małgosia used to come to see me. She had a car, she’d drive over.

To be honest, there was a kind of pressure. My dad wanted me to study law. I couldn’t, there were too many of us to afford school. You had to go where they gave you a dormitory, food, and a job. I was honest, I was very honest, I worked very honestly. I say that about myself. I really was honest. I always knew that mental illness could affect anyone. Because it’s not a disease of the heart, liver, lungs or anything like that. It’s an illness of the mind. And they don’t have proper medicine for it. Even today they don’t know what causes schizophrenia. They just don’t know. It was my choice. I realised that if they recruit you, they encourage you, explain, talk…

I was tall and sturdy. I was about 168cm tall and weighed 73 kilos. I remember my job interview. All the psychiatric nurses – all of them were… well, I don’t know now, after so many years – but back then they were all tall. As one patient said, ‘A woman isn’t supposed to be “handsome”, but you’re all handsome’. Tall, well-built. Whether Stasia, or me, or… all of us. Litkowie-Cimanowski, there were three poor things. They had conferences, training, meetings. They’d meet and discuss. There were many patients with criminal charges. And what can I tell you – mentally ill people. I still have it to this day, you know. Mrs. Połom will tell you. ‘The doctor won’t run the ward for three days, but I can run it for two weeks’. That’s what I used to say, and that’s how it was. They still repeat it today. ‘Mrs. Połom said the doctor can’t manage three days, but she can do two weeks without a doctor’. Nurses leave behind all kinds of stories and memories. But no – above all, I had respect. They respected me, that’s what I’ll tell you. Whether it was Bystrzanowski, or anyone – Bukowski or not Bukowski. The doctors. Not to mention the women. Targońska, to this very day – when I’m at the Zegarskis now, she was still asking how I was, how things where, whether I needed anything. I said no, I have family, I don’t need anything.

I think so, yes. You explain to the family: another week, another two weeks, things are looking good, the treatment is going well. You know… I’m not very good with talking like that. We gave them medications, explained how to administer them, how to care for their relatives at home for as long as possible. And never say ‘you nutter’ or ‘you idiot’ – above all, you must adjust to the patient psychologically. The family must be very, very careful with that at home.