Having explored some service user poetry, now let’s explore some poems written by health and social care students as a way to explore their thoughts and feelings about practice. Caring Words is an online community where you can read poems written by health and social care students. ‘The Poems’ will direct you to poems about different topics relating to health and social care practice. The following is a poem written by a first-year nursing student from the perspective of an older woman who is in hospital following a fall. 

I’m Alone

The tick of the clock,
The drip of the tap.
The click of a heel; clack, clack, down the hall.
The beep of the machines,
The buzz of the lights.
This hospital never stops, so I can’t sleep at night.

There’s a man crying out in pain upstairs,
In the waiting room, there is a woman sobbing for the loss of her brother.
The lady on my right has had her hip replaced,
On the left her breasts are gone, ‘it’s inherited from my mother’.

The creak of the door,
The ring of the phone.
The whimper of a patient; a howl and groan.
The streams of doctors,
The rustle of paper.
This hospital is full, so I’m just a number.

The doctors are pleasant enough,
The nurses are always busy, rushed of their feet, but they aren’t to blame.
There’s patients galore in here,
One in, one out. It’s never the same.

I lie in my bed,
I’m watered, I’m fed.
I’m sheltered and clothed; how can I moan?
But I’m scared.
But I’m frightened.
But I’m alone, Nurse. I’m alone.

I never know what’s happening until its begun,
They smile politely, and talk so nicely, but I don’t understand.
Can’t they see this is all new to me,
Can’t they see I’m afraid, I just need a friend, I just need a hand.

I lie in my bed,
I’m watered, I’m fed.
I’m medicated and cleaned; how can I moan?
But no-one here knows me.
But no-one knows my life.
But I’m alone, Nurse. I’m alone.

The nurses are good at their jobs,
They get the work done; they make people healthy.
But I can’t help to think,
They don’t often see the human, the person, in here,
They don’t see me.

I lie in my bed,
I’m watered, I’m fed.
But I feel like I’m dying; I feel like I’m dead.

Author: Hester Astell

I’m Alone was written from the perspective of an older woman and explores her thoughts and feelings about being admitted into a healthcare setting.