well alright
if you really want to know
I\'ll tell you the theory
my theory
see
a few eons ago
they stopped making people like me
I\'m a relic from another time
I rubbed shoulders
with madness and eccentricity and violence
and plain nuttiness
for three full years before they licensed me
to be a psychiatric nurse
nowadays
if they give students two or three weeks
it\'s a luxury
back then
they figured that
if we could treat really sick people
in their homes or in the community
they wouldn\'t need to come to hospital
we could go to them
fair enough
so what happened
was that all the nurses who had a few runs
on the board
skills and experience
went off to work in the community
well you would
wouldn\'t you
lovely
except that the result
and you don\'t need to be a rocket scientist
for this bit
the result
is that we started getting the sickest people
the ones that couldn\'t be managed in the community
coming into the inpatient units
drug-induced
violent
resistive
suicidal
homicidal
bloody near impossible
at the same time
we stopped training people
in the way they’d created nurses like me
oops
no wonder it\'s a bloody struggle
for the poor buggers working in the acute units
no wonder it\'s hard to find staff
you can\'t blame them for not being interested
in learning on-the-job in psychiatry
no wonder the system is stuffed
anyway
I don\'t know if there\'s a place in the game
anymore
for an old fart like me
I\'m too cynical
jaded maybe
but that\'s my theory
some other bugger might tell you different
but one thing\'s sure
it isn\'t right
~