Twelve hours on the night ward
Handover at eight, the hardest hour at three and the conversations patients only have at night.
Kemi Adeyemi
4 min read
From eight in the evening to eight in the morning, a hospital ward runs on a small team of nurses who keep everything going while the rest of the building sleeps. Kemi spent a full night shift with them. This is what she heard.
In this episode
- 00:00 — Handover at eight
- 07:40 — The quiet hours that are never quiet
- 18:20 — Three in the morning: the hardest hour
- 29:55 — What patients say at night
- 40:15 — Handover again, twelve hours later
Handover
Every night shift begins with handover: the day team walks the night team through every patient, one by one. Medicines, worries, family visits, changes since the morning. It takes almost an hour, and every nurse Kemi speaks to calls it the most important hour of the day.
Grace, the senior nurse on shift, has worked nights for eleven years. She chose it. "Nights are different," she explains. "Fewer people, fewer interruptions, more time to actually sit with a patient. You get to know people at night in a way you never do in the day."
You get to know people at night in a way you never do in the day.
Grace, senior night nurse
