Work Experience

I started my second work experience at Peamount Hospital in Newcastle. I started work at 9.30 am on the morning of Wednesday 7th January 2015. This was a completely different experience to that of my first placement at the Irish Red Cross head office. For one thing there were other transition year students also on placements at Peamount which was a huge relief!

As soon as I arrived I was introduced to a nursing student and two other Transition Years from St. Joseph's secondary school in Lucan who are also doing their work placements. We were then asked to go on a tea/coffee break until 10am (I found this really strange considering the fact that I had arrived at the hospital only three minutes earlier but oh well yay tea!)

After our much deserved break after that gruesome three WHOLE minutes of work,  I was put through some basic wheelchair training, health and safety guidelines and given a talk about what I am and am not allowed to do while on placement.

At 10:30 am, I was given my first task which was to bring two of the patients to Wednesday morning mass which lasted half an hour. After the mass, we then brought some of the patients to the computer room for 45 minutes. This was one of my favourite parts of the day becasuse we got a chance to see the kinds of music the people listened to and very often, it was music from their time which I would never have heard before that day.
The rest of my day consisted of lunch, reading to the patients, having one on one talks with them about their families and lives and giving the ladies hand care which consisted of hand massages, nail filing, painting and pampering and I was finished at 3:30pm

My first day wasn't what I imagined it to be, it was even better. In a short period of time I had gotten to know the people I work with, heard stories about the lives of some very interesting people.

Thanks for reading,
Anita x