Nurse Jackie is a caring nurse, a good mum and an unfaithful wife. She also has a serious drug habit. She is one of those long suffering very experienced nurses who ensure the young know nothing think they know everything young Doctors don’t make too many mistakes.
Jackie thinks hospital bureaucracy shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of good care nor should poverty and she has a strong sense of social justice. The first episode of the first series set the tone. She forges an organ donor card, steals from a rich patient to give to a poor one and flushes the severed ear of a violent diplomat down the toilet.
Holding down a stressful full time job, working anti social shifts and bringing up a family is very tiring. Sometimes she just needs a little something to pep her up. One of her daughters is showing worrying signs of irrational anxieties, the school have already had her in to express their concern. She is a bright and sociable child but her obsessive hand washing and inability to sleep at night for fear the house will burn down is starting to adversely affect her and everyone else in the family. So it hardly surprising that now and then Jackie needs something to help her cope.
The hospital pharmacist she is having an affair with will keep her supplied with the good stuff and she has the code for the computerised tamper proof drug dispenser. She also has the individual codes for every other member of staff on the ward. The added complication is that the pharmacist doesn’t know Jackie is married.
Above all else nurse Jackie has retained her compassion for her fellow human beings despite working in an environment where death and suffering are routine events and caring takes second place to budget considerations. It not surprising that sometimes she feels over whelmed and needs a little something to get her through the shift.
Jackie managers her drug habit like she managers her work life balance precariously.
We haven’t seen anything like nurse Jacky since “No Angels” put some gritty realism into nursing in the NHS. The difference is the American health care system and whether the emphases on health as a business would lead any decent nurse astray.
(Nurse Jackie is the central character in a USA TV drama of the same name now showing on Sky Atlantic HD every Tuesday at 10 am)
Blair McPherson is author of Equipping Managers for an Uncertain Future published by www.russellhouse.co.uk