Jack is working on an adolescent ward this afternoon and it happens to be a ward that he has worked on before. He is on Castle unit this afternoon and it is a ward for teenage girls that suffer from mental health issues such as self harm, eating disorders, past abuse and visual and auditory hallucinations. These patients have had a poor to horrific upbringing from family members to so called family friends. Jack thinks to himself how on earth can people do such nasty things like this to innocent children. It doesn’t matter who you are working in this line of work you do tend to feel for some of the patients that have to stay in hospital like this.
13:00pm
Jack enters Castle ward and walks into the nursing office which is just off to the left when you come onto Castle ward, he greets the nurse that is sitting at a computer with her back to him.
Jack greets the nurse;
“Hi I’m Jack from the nursing agency; I’m on an afternoon with you guys”.
The nurse stops what she is doing and swings round on the office swivel chair just a little too hard and nearly topples over as she tries to catch herself on the side of the desk she starts to laugh at herself. Jack wonders if she is laughing through embarrassment or does she genuinely finds what she did funny? As she lifts herself up Jack notices that she has turned a nice shade of pinky red and says to himself ” embarrassment” but only says this in thinking. To save her dying from embarrassment Jack says to this;
“At least I’m not the only one that falls off chairs”
Then gives her a little smile and takes a seat next to her. The nurse introduces herself as Karen and she happens to be the duty nurse manager of Castle ward. Karen asks if Jack has worked on here before to which he nods and says;
“About six months ago was my last shift, I spent most of my shift on a constant with a patient called Sarah”
Karen replies to Jack “Sarah has been transferred to adult services back in her home town”
Jack just smiles as that shift was a bit of a nightmare from what he can remember. Karen hands over about the patients to which there are eight girls in total, mostly suffering from abuse and have a history of violence to staff and self harm. In Jacks history he has found that he does work well with patients that have aggressive behaviours and self harm. Karen mentions a patient called Terri;
“She has a history or aggression and serious self harm which possibly stems from early abuse and has a six inch open wound on her left arm which will not heal as she keeps reopening and now the skin will not grow back over it and it is all dried up. Terri does try to stick objects in her arm and will try to make her arm bleed”.
First thing Jack asks is “is she on a constant and do you want me to be on her constant”.
Karen looks at Jack and smiles and says;
“Yes I’m afraid so, is that ok”?
Jack simply nods and responds to her by saying;
“that’s fine with me I do my best work with difficult patients like Terri”

As Jack stands up Karen says to Jack;
“one more thing Jack, Terri is having a visit from her boyfriend at about three o’clock and they will probably spend time in her room which is fine but just keep an eye on him as he does not help Terri”.
Jack asks ” what do you mean”?
Karen tells Jack ” he brings stuff in with him for her to self harm with but we know he hides the objects on himself and we can’t search him. If you see anything he is to leave straight away”
Jack responds “ok not a problem, he will be leaving quickly if I see anything”.
Jack walks out of the office and onto the ward and as he walks through the door he scans the ward through a window in the door just for his own safety. He doesn’t want a patient trying to run at him to get out the door, or as has before to be punched in the side of the head before as he walked into a ward in the past and it is something he doesn’t want to happen again. As Jack closes the door behind him he sees two staff towering over a patient who is sitting in a corner of the day area facing the wall. The two staff are just standing there and as Jack walks over and nods at them he wonders to himself
“why does one of them not sit down next to the patient and talk to her”?
Hey but who is he to judge right he doesn’t know the full story. As he gets over to the two staff Jack says;
” I’m here to be on Terri’s constant, where is she”?
One of the nurses respond in an unprofessional manner and say;
“thank god for that, this is Terri and she has decided to sit her and not come out of the corner and we have had enough”
Jack looks at the idiot talking to him and has a feeling of wanting to slap the arrogance out of him a few hundred times and just responds
“well maybe if you sit down next to her and try something unusual in this job, talk to her”
Jack just looks at him then plonks his butt down next to Terri. She turns round with a smile on her face and just says
“thanks, they don’t want to talk to me when they are on my constant”
Now Jack doesn’t know the full story of what’s going on here buy he is not easily fooled by patients’ as he has learnt quick. Now what you got to understand about Terri is she does manipulate or tries too, a situation to her advantage just so she can have an opportunity to self harm or get stuff to hurt herself with. Terri is a 17 year old girl from a well to do family and she is dearly loved by her parents. Het history is that she went to a general school but she was top of all her classes sand she was pushed by her parents to succeed as well. Doctors think the pressure to do well from her parents and getting bullied at school caused her mental health issues. Terri is a short girl slim with long dark hair and dresses in dark blue Nike trainers, with gold digger track bottoms and a dark blue Nike hooded top.
Jack introduces himself and says
“I’m on your constant for now, ok so lets not have a bad few hours please” the smiles at her.
Jack suggests getting up out of the corner and maybe walking up and down the day area or having a game of cards. Terri smiles and starts to get up and says
“can we just walk up and down for now”
So up Jack gets and starts to walk with her at a slow pace which suits him just fine. Terri stops and asks Hack to let her in the toilet as she needs to go desperately. Jack looks at her and says
” you are fully supervised so you need a female staff member to let you in a observe you”
Terri expression changes to somewhat of annoyance and replies to Jack in a hostile, annoyed and angry voice
” no I tucking don’t I’m not supervised”
Jack stands his ground and replies to Terri in a calm and softly spoken voice
” I have just had handover from Karen and she has told me you are on full supervision”
Terri buts in and still angry saying “well she fucking lying”
Jacks says “OK shall I just call her out and we will ask her yes” , Jack turns as if to go and call Karen but Terri grabs his arm and says
” no don’t I’ll get Susan to supervise me”
Jack doesn’t say anything her just smiles and calls out for Susan. As Susan walks over the three of them walk over to the toilets and Susan opens the observation hatch in the toilet door then unlocks it and asks Terri not to try and lock the door to which Terri responds
” I know for fucks sake” and then slams the door.
Susan lets Jack know that he handled her well then playing her bluff about calling Karen. Jack responds with just a smile as her doesn’t take compliments very well, he gets all embarrassed. After about five minutes Terri comes out of the toilet and walks away from Jack and Susan just giving and evil stair at Jack. This doesn’t bother Jack as this reaction is common in this line of work from the adolescent patients. Terri storms of and goes and plonks herself on the sofa in the day area and watched TV with some of her peers, it appears to be some sort of crappy soap that they are all watching which happens to be very cheesy in the acting parts but this does amuse Jack so he joins her and sits next to her. By the look on Terri’s face she does not seem very happy that he has joined her on the big brown leather looking sofa but to be fare she has no choice in the matter.
15:00pm (3o’clock)
They sit there for a while and then Karen comes looking for Jack and Terri and calls out to Terri that her boyfriend is here and Terri’s expression and body posture goes from annoyance and slouchy to a big beaming smile and to Terri sitting up straight just like a lady of well to do upbringing. Terri stands and walks over to her boyfriends and she raps her arms around him hugging and kissing him like a woman that has not seen her husband from before the war. Terri asks her boyfriend is known as Jon and appears to be dressing very much like Terri in Nike trainers with track bottoms and a blue hoody with what appears to be a gold necklace around his neck,
“Let’s go to my bedroom” she says to Jon and then turns to Jack and says
“Can you and Susan take us down to our bedroom please?” she asks Jack.
Jack has noticed that she is all politeness and sweat when her boyfriend is here but Jack being Jack just turns to Susan and calls for her to come down with the three of them. Susan gets off the sofa and follows the three of them down to the bedroom corridor to Terri’s room. Jack walks up to the door and opens it for the two love birds but Terri says in a demanding and bossy tone that comes across as sharp as well
“You have to wait out her”
Jack just smiles and notices that the boyfriend just stairs at Jack in a cocky, attempting to look tough manner. Jack just looks back in a manner of I really cannot be arsed with your childish way. As they walk into her bedroom Jon slams the door shut and he can hear from the bedroom Jon speaking to Terri saying
“Don’t fucking like that nurse with his cocky attitude; he’s lucky I didn’t slap him out”
Jack just looks at Susan and laughs and Susan tells Jack that he shouldn’t worry about Jon,
“He’s just a wonna be gangster but can’t stand for himself”
Jack just smiles and replies “that how it appears to me too”
Jack goes back to the door and he can see Terri and Jon sitting on the bed looking in a carrier bag that he had brought in for her. Nothing looks too bad at the minute just Jon’s dress sense and so with that Jack sits back down with Susan. They sit there and every ten minutes one of them has to get up and just check on the pair in the room. About an hour passes and all of a sudden Jack and Susan hear a sound coming from Terrie’s room. It can only be described as a yelp from a woman that appears to be in pain, so with this noise Jack walks over to the door and looks through the observation window in the door and all he can see is Terri sitting on the bed with her arm out to the side and her boyfriend standing in front of her arm and doing what looks like he is shaking something over her arm. Jack swings the bedroom door open and it bangs against the wall and this makes Jon drop whatever was in his hands onto the floor. Jack looks on the floor and it appears to be a tubular container which is white with black writing on and a load of powder falls out over the floor. Jon quickly bends down and tries to pick it up but Jack rushes over and as Jack goes to pick it up he knocks into Jon and Jon goes to the floor with a thud and Jack manages to pick it up before Jon realises where he is. All of a sudden the attack alarms go off and Jack turns round and Susan has activated the alarms and she is starring at Terri’s arm. Terri’s arm which has the open wound on it appears to be raw red almost like it is burnt with specks of white powder over her wound and it is just starting to bleed. Jack looks at what he has in his hands and what is written on the container is oven cleaner, with this Jack looks over at Jon who is starting to get his arse off the floor and Jack says to Jon in a tone what only could be described as ‘I’m going to kick your ass’,
“What the fuck is this? You little shit, how could you do this’
Jon’ response which sounds like someone that’s going to get his ass kicked replies
“She asked me to bring it in”
Jack goes over to Jon thinking I really want to kick the shit out of you but at the same time thinks to himself “you aren’t with losing my job over”. Jack grabs him by the shoulder and drags Jon backwards out of the room and tells Jon to
“Get the fuck off the ward and don’t come back”
Jon has appeared to be a wonna be gangster but to Jack he is a frightened little boy who is under the spell of his girlfriend Terri. Jack watches Jon walk off down the corridor with his head bowed down and sees him walk off the ward but as he gets to the door Jon turns round and shouts at Jack
“You better what your fuck back matey I’m going to get you”
Jack stops in his tracks and turns round to face Jon and starts to run at Jon but Jon bolts it out of the door as quick as a flash and then Jack stops and heads back to the bedroom. Susan heads out of the bedroom and raises her hand and puts it on Jacks chest as if to stop him entering the bed room. Jack stops and looks at Susan and replies to the gesture
“What? What have I done?”
Susan asks him “why do you think you done anything wrong”?
Jacks reply was “well by the look on you face I would say that I have and I’m in trouble”
Susan then smiles and says to Jack “you haven’t done anything wrong, we can’t stand her cocky boyfriend and we have wanted to kick him out for a while”.
Jack smile back at Susan and tells her “well that’s what I’m here for to do the jobs that no one wants”.
At this point the response team that came to help out come out of the bedroom escorting Terri down the bedroom corridor and into the clinic. It looks like she is going to get treated for burns to her arm and well she will have to go to the hospital later if it’s serious enough. Jack goes off to the office and sits with Karen and explains everything what had happened from the moment they got to her bedroom.
18:00 (6 o’clock)
It has taken quite a while to fill out the paper work with Karen as Jack being on the agency does not have access to the patient’s notes. So all the relevant people have been contacted, like Duty consultant, Nurse Manager and the police. To be fair even though the patient has asked for this stuff to be brought in and Terri asked Jon to poor it in her open wound Jon has still committed an offence and the police need to be informed. So once all the paper work has been done and Jack has written his statement it appears to be seven o’clock. Jack looks at his watch and thinks dam that went so quick. Karen turns to Jack and asks if he would come back and work on the ward which seems to be a great idea as Jack does need to have a permanent job with regular hours. There is a knock at the door and it is Terri standing there all bandaged up looking sorry for herself and tells Jack
“I’m sorry for that” looking at Jack.
Jacks response was “there no need to say sorry to me”
Terri quickly turns and walks away to the lounge with her two constant nurses. Jack tells Karen that he has had a great shift and it has gone so quick with everything that has happened but he has enjoyed the evening.
“Thanks again” says Karen as Jack walks off and then Susan calls out to Jack “thanks for the help”.
Jack just Bowes his head and walks off the ward through the door and thinks that was different for sure.