The Conditions for Nurses
The average working life of a nurse is 10 years. Many end their working life’s earlier than this due to family needs but other factors are at work for example back injuries. Over the past 30 years many management tools have been introduced. This included full time student status(the ending of the apprenticeship system. The use of nurse management and consultants(ending the Matron structure.)So unpopular and unworkable have these new systems been the only solution has been to spread the recruitment process through out the world. The conditions outlined above form the social reality of the nursing staff. The misery and the stress of the job is translated into depression and increasing numbers of nurses taking their own life’s.
Student Nurse Fees.
The failure of the Nurses Project 2,000 needs further discussion. Further the continued deterioration of nursing should not be allowed to continue. The number of nurses leaving the NHS doubled last year and is now higher than in the 1980s.
The stress and strains of early industrial society were known in terms of social failures,family breakdowns ,health disorders and suicides..To what extent have we progressed?


We are told its progress but were is the evidence and what is the nature of the progress. It is extremely difficult to talk of psychiatry and psychiatry nursing for that matter partly because of the nature of the language and personal experience in the 1970s it was relatively easy to attack and criticise Russian and Chinese models of care. The role of the state and the harsh applications of treatment and control made it an easy target. It was clearly a tool of social control. We may gain a historical overview by briefly consider psychological pressures under combat conditions.

Psychological pressures under combat conditions
Since World War 1 the military have been increasingly aware of the problems of stress and combat fatigue. Fighting was also aided by liberal amounts of rum i.e. Dutch courage. Much of modern psychiatry such as the writing therapies(Dr Rivers and the Hydra)emerged from this. But Therapy was given on on a class basis the serving private was more likely to be punished,tortured or executed.

The second world war saw the development of new psychological techniques and drugs.Indeed many servicemen developed addictions through the overuse of speed.Post traumatic stress disorders were better understood and the work of the film star A.Murphy helped to tackle the stigma.The Vietnam war saw the explosion of a wide range of individual and group exercises in experiential learning ,trust exercises,flooding,grieving,role play .The irony of the war was that many young servicemen lost their lifes through the rotation policy that ensured experience was not built up.The effects on the individual and the familySeveral issues are not developed for popular consumption of present and past service people.These include suicide,drug and alcohol misuse.The others are domestic violence and the murder of their partners or wives on their return.The plight of service families are little discussed in the service of nation building.The present poor welfare of those presently serving in Iraq needs careful consideration.One is that previous policy of rotation away from combat area following injuries or wounding is not taking place.The extraordinary pressures that service people are been put has a number of implications 1.Suicide2.Increased agression and maladaptive behaviour ie as likely to kill each other as the enemy 3.The onset of a mixture of obsessive-compulsive behaviours ,addictions etc.All these would be bad enough in a conventional war fare arena.However this is supposed to be a peace keeping and nation building attempt.The mixture of the USA forces part regular and irregular(partime police and national guard.) and contract staff.Add to this culture and language with the differing political,religious groupings.Then you have an explosive mixture.These experiences will be brought back to America with the unfortunate needs for more mental health facilities,prisons,broken marriages,further suicides and murders.The experience of the British Army in the South will be relatively easier perhaps?



Following the end of the second world war. The drive in Britain for houses, employment ,public services and a national health service represented a concession from the ruling class but also we saw a major re-grouping on the right. This re-grouping of the right and the corporate growth has not been effectively challenged.

Major think thanks publishing houses, media control, positions in academic institutions and the blurring of the distinction between left and right. If socialism in the past was wrongly credited to that of China or Russia. Or even located in the trade unions and indeed the Labour Party. Much of the thinking of PPP and PFI blurs even further the idea of democracy in public work and its institutions. Individuals have not been slow to make profit from this new development. One such example is that Lord Sawyer, the former Labour Party general-secretary and public sector union chief, is now chairman of Reed Health Group, whose own publicity material states that it aims to profit from the structural deficiencies of the NHS, the continuing shortage of nurses and an aging population.

The Conditions for patients and the General Population.
.The nature of capitalism has proved to be very difficult to come to terms with. The techniques of state intervention and planning developed by the Soviets were re-employed in the West. Weak industries such as coal,steel,rail tended to benefit from the centralised nature of State planning.Such formed much of the economic and management planning behind the National Health Services.But the total solutions also represented the nature of class struggle,consciousness,trade union action..However the counter prevailing ideologies had their weakness.Poverty remained as a factor and the individual experiences of alienated labour.The pressures of work witnessed by stress,sex,drink and drug addictions continue to rise.

Neither could individuals find reprieve at home, gender wars, shortage of shelter, rising prices ,separation and divorce presenting .Even where there was or is some modicum of prosperity it is not enough. The population is now served by a army of about 250,0000 councillors. About 6 million of the population are sedated under their general practitioners. The waiting time to see a psychiatrist is about 2 years. The techniques and the drugs are recycled so now electric convulsive therapy has returned to fashion. Individual misery also carried a social reality of been stretched or sandwiched between the needs of elderly parents, family ,offspring and grandchildren.
Conclusion.
The lefts failure to deal with social control issues of which psychiatry is apart.Its neglect of the theory of the State and the growing power of the corporations.Are all matters of concern.The dominance of a ideology that is unchecked or countered needs a challenge.The changes and the present difficulties in health and nursing are a symptom of this.We should demandmore freedom and seek a little more awareness than we have todate.

As we survey the last century one notes the observations of Rosa Luxemburg that the choices before humanity were socialism or barbarism. Each day seems to sharpen the choice and the urgency. To tackle them we will have to start anew.

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