Night Nurse

As the clock strikes 9pm, most of us are turning in for the night. For our community night nurses, who work across Kent, their day has just started.

They travel across the county to quietly and compassionately care for some of our most poorly patients – because pain and suffering for those who are battling illness or at the end of their life, doesn’t stop with the clock.

Night Nurse Natasha Triantafilou is setting out at midnight to a street in Canterbury. Sometimes covering 200 miles in a single shift, this is her third appointment.

When she arrives with her bag – packed with medical supplies – she is met with a room full of people crying, surrounding a bed.

In the bed is Lee* in his 20s, desperately thin. His breaths are rasping as the family grips one another with fear. Then, he cries out in pain.

“We need you to make him more comfortable,” sobbed Sarah* his wife. “He hasn’t got long left.”

The walls in Lee’s home are covered with family photos. The man in the shots is full of life, smiling, holding a baby and a toddler on his lap. It was just a year ago. Now he is almost unrecognisable. That’s what cancer can do to a person.

'Every family needs our service'

Natasha calmly administers pain relief and Lee falls quiet. It’s as if the entire room is breathing a sigh of relief.

Before she leaves, she spends time with his wife, in the kitchen, arm around her shoulders consoling her as she breaks down and says ‘Why is this happening to us?’

But her on-call mobile phone is already ringing again and she must slip away into the night to help someone else in need.

Natasha said: “The transition between calls can be quick and it can be hard to leave, but each call is important and every family needs our service.

“Once, I had five death verifications in a row. I came home to the kids giggling with their breakfast bowls and the buzz of normal life starting. The contrast of the everyday compared with everything we see can be jarring, but it is something you learn to get used to.”

'Family life just felt 'doable'

Natasha has worked as a community night nurse for 12 years. The team provides out-of-hours support to patients who need urgent or end-of-life care, but do not need to be in a hospital.

She was attracted to the role not only for her desire to help others, but also because the hours worked perfectly around family life.

She said: “I’d leave when the kids were asleep, and arrive in time for the school run. Then I’d wake to get dinner ready, collect them from school and family life just felt doable.

When I tell people what I do their eyes always widen. But, while the job can be emotionally tough it also brings so much satisfaction. I love my job.

“When you’re a night nurse you come into a family at a time when sometimes they’re out of hope. You treat the whole family, you listen and you support. There have been times when as many as 20 have been sat in a room when I turn up. For those few hours, you become part of their family.

“And it isn’t always death and chronic illness – though much of it is – we also help with general pain relief or treating an unblocked catheter. I always joke that I’m the ‘on call plumber’ with some of my catheter patients. We can laugh, even when things are hard.”

During her shift, Natasha’s next call is to certify the death of an 86-year-old grandmother-of-nine. The room in Ashford, like the last, is packed with loving family surrounding a chair where the lady’s body, covered with a patchwork quilt, is sat.

Natasha checks her pulse and pupils, quietly working to a backdrop of cries from the lady’s family. She removes her catheter and sets her down comfortably, before advising the family of the next steps in making arrangements for the body. Driving home Natasha reflects on the people she has supported in her career.

'Much more than pain relief'

“One family I will never forget, a young mum with two daughters who were four and six. She had ovarian cancer. The family was broken, but until the end she was fighting to keep up the façade of being ‘mum’ to two little girls who just didn’t understand.

“When I would arrive, the dad would be dozing, the children asleep and she would finally let it all out – the tears, the terror and the fear – I administered pain relief, but was there for so much more than that.”

As Natasha puts her key in her own front door, the bustle of ordinary life echoes out on to the street as the rest of the world is waking up. Natasha shakes off the pain she has been carrying for all those people she has treated and steps into her own reality.

She said: “In hospitals you’d get a debrief after a death, but we come back home and just have to switch off our thoughts. We don’t tell our families and we lock it all away.

“But, I wouldn’t do any other job in the world. When I am on those shifts, it’s just me and my patients. They might not remember my name, but I know I’ve made a real difference for them, many, of whom are at the most unthinkable time of their life."