Tom Reynolds - The Complete Blood, Sweat and Tea

Finally, the door gave and we gained access, we were greeted by the elderly woman sitting on the floor smiling at us – earlier in the morning she had fallen and couldn’t get up. When we had tried banging on her windows she had been asleep, and it was only the repeated bashing of my foot against her door that had caused her to wake up.

This was a good job in a number of ways: the lady was happy and healthy, and just needed a hand to get up off of the floor; I got to kick in a door and get away with not causing any serious damage; and finally we looked like heroes to the two daughters of our patient. There were smiles all round and we left the job feeling that we had really been of some use today.

Substitute

I know that the ambulance service is being used as a substitute GP service these days, but it really takes the biscuit sometimes. Take, for example, the job I was sent on last night. It came down to our ambulance as ‘Patient wants to kill his doctor’.

I immediately called up Control on the radio and asked if we were being sent because they couldn’t find the patient’s GP? Although I was half joking, I wondered what good we could do for the patient. Control got back to us, and let us know that they were sending the police, and that we should wait until they turn up. However, when we arrived at the address we knew who the patient was – so we cancelled the police and sorted out the patient’s problem.

I mention this if only because, when I got back on station and read the local newspaper, I found a story about a coroner’s investigation into the death of a 55-year-old female who had taken a fatal overdose of bloodpressure medication. When Control asked if she was violent, they were told that yes, the patient was violent. The police were called and the crew waited at a rendezvous point for half an hour until the police turned up. By then it was too late, and the patient died. Once more, the paper blames the ambulance crew. It doesn’t blame the psychiatric services who discharged her a few weeks earlier after a failed suicide attempt, neither does it blame the person who made the phone call that said that the patient was violent. It blames the crew who, quite rightly, waited for the police. If one of the crew had been stabbed to death, it might be a more sympathetic headline. We are expected to go into people’s houses, where we have been told that the patient is violent, where we could get assaulted or even killed – but as soon as we start thinking about our own safety, we are the ones to blame for anything that goes wrong with that patient.

Violence from the drunks, druggies and criminals doesn’t worry me – the job that worries me is the little old lady who has become confused and is sitting in her living room with her husband’s service revolver, or her favourite kitchen knife, desperate to stop the strange men in green from stealing her away in the night.

As normal the ambulance service has investigated, but in a show of support for its road staff, has stated that the policy of waiting for the police at a rendezvous point is the correct thing to do.

We are not cowards, but neither are we stupid/paid enough to wander into dangerous situations.

Nicked

I’ve just gotten on station for the start of my shift, only to find out that some scrote had broken into the station last night and nicked the video recorder and DVD player.

I mean, it’s not like we are ever on station long enough to use them, but it’s the principle …

These are the sort of people that we serve, these are the sort of people we are polite, professional and caring towards – and this is how we are repaid …

More Nicked

It’s getting so you have to tie things down now …

Yesterday a ‘Decontamination POD’ truck was stolen; this is an unmarked truck that we use to carry around chemical incident equipment. The current word is that this truck was carrying a load of atropine, which is the treatment for nerve agents.

If people were to start injecting this into themselves, they could get serious (as in fatal) effects.

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide if this is a good or a bad thing …

You Decide

Still no drunks, but the weekend starts today and my shift ends at 2 a.m. …

I’m going to describe a job I went to last night.

The patient is female and 30 years old. She is married and is attempting to get pregnant. The only medicine she is taking is fertility treatment, and she is (obviously) having unprotected sex; she is normally fit and healthy and has no allergies. Her normal menstrual period is regular, but her period is over 2 weeks late this time around. She has been having nausea and vomiting for the past 3 days. She has no abdominal pain, and is not tender or guarding. She has no pain or increased frequency of passing urine. All vital signs are within normal limits.

So … given this information …

(a) What do you think is ‘wrong’ with her?

(b) Does she need a trip to hospital in an ambulance?

(c) Why do you think she hasn’t done a pregnancy test?

Dragging

Sometimes a day can just drag along. Today, due to rather unusual circumstances, the day really dragged. Here is the time-line of today:

10:00 Turn up for work, brew a cup of tea.

10:01 First job of the day, taking someone from Newham hospital to Barts hospital.

10:02 Cut my finger on my locker door, try to stop bleeding, look for plaster.

10:23 Give up search for a plaster – there are none on the station – leave for Newham hospital.

10:26 Arrive at Newham hospital, ask for plaster; they also don’t have a plaster so I now have a huge dressing on my finger.

10:28 Meet with patient, pleasant woman – meet nurse who will be accompanying patient, barely understand nurse because of her inability to speak English.

10:30 Get patient’s notes and read them – they make more sense.

10:32 Ask nurse in charge why this patient (who is having cardiac monitoring and a blood transfusion) is going to an outpatient department. Get told that the patient ‘just is’.

10:54 After packaging the patient on a stretcher, loading them on the back of the ambulance, we set off for Barts hospital.

10:55 Nurse escort tells me that she gets travel sick.

10:55 and 20 seconds Give nurse a vomit bag.

11:37 Arrive at Barts hospital.

11:38 Enter outpatients’ department. Reception seem rather surprised to see patient on stretcher appear in front of them.

11:40 Problem is referred to the sister in charge, she also looks befuddled.

12:00 We wait while sister in charge phones around the hospital trying to work out why this patient is in her outpatient department.

12:30 Still waiting … We let Control know why we are waiting – there is no stretcher/bed to put the patient on.

13:00 Still waiting.

13:30 Still waiting – we let Control know that we still have the patient on our stretcher while they work out what they are going to do with our patient.

14:00 Still waiting.

14:30 Still waiting – we let Control know that we haven’t gone to sleep, we are told by sister in charge that patient will be admitted soon.

14:45 We place patient on an examination bed so that we can go back to answering emergency calls; patient will hopefully be in a hospital bed soon. We leave the nurse escort with the patient.

14:48 We are finally available for another job.