Sharon Kendrik - Seize The Day

It all made sense, she knew that. Hadn’t she thought that they should have an OT for years? Hadn’t she politely spoken to Dr Marlow time after time, requesting one? But the kindly, and somewhat elderly doctor had not been in the least dynamic. He had gone into committee meetings and put his case so mildly that none of the board of governors—operating under such tight financial strain already—could believe his arguments that an OT was imperative.

So why did it irk her so much that Leo Trentham had achieved in less than two weeks what she had been coveting for years? She should be glad for the ward’s sake. And yet she felt as though her position as leader was being usurped. What else had he changed while she had been away?

She called one of the student nurses over to her, a happy hard-worker called Daisy Galloway, who was on secondment from Denbury’s sister hospital—the large St Martin’s. Jenny liked her very much.

‘Hello, Sister,’ grinned the girl. ‘You look great! Did you have a good time?’

‘I certainly did!’ Until I became acquainted with our new surgeon, she thought. ‘Will you do the two o’clock drug-round with me?’

‘Yes, Sister.’

They unlocked the trolley from the wall, then unlocked the first section, then the section within which contained the Schedule ‘B’ drugs. Jenny flinched a little when she saw how disordered the latter drugs appeared—bottles dumped haphazardly into the small space, not into the neat alphabetical lines which she favoured. She wondered who was responsible, but she suppressed a small click of disapproval, not wanting to seem overly critical of her staff. There might have been a perfectly good reason for such oversight—an emergency taking place during the drug-round, for example—when all the bottles might have had to be put back quickly and locked, so that the staff could run to the aid of a patient.

With experienced fingers she swiftly realigned the bottles, then glanced up at the student nurse.

‘Do you know why hospitals are so obsessed with neatness and order, Nurse Galloway?’

Nurse Galloway cleared her throat. ‘Er—I think so, Sister.’

‘Yes?’

‘Er—it’s because hospitals are run a bit like the military.’

Jenny laughed. ‘And why do you say that?’

Daisy looked less shy. ‘My dad used to be in the marines, and he told me.’

Jenny nodded. ‘Well, you’re right! Like the services, we tend to have lots of rules, but there are reasons for those rules—we don’t devise them just because we want to make more work for the students, or to be awkward.’

‘Yes, Sister?’ asked Daisy interestedly. She loved Sister Hughes—even though she was a ward sister, you felt you could ask her anything .

‘Well, if I shouted for you to get me something urgently—a drug, for example, and we always kept our drugs in alphabetical order, you’d be able to find it immediately, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘Alternatively, if a patient was having a cardiac arrest and I wanted the defibrillator, it would be of no use to us if the last person to use it had left it lying at the bottom of their ward instead of returning it to the corridor between Rose and Daffodil, now, would it?’

‘No, it certainly wouldn’t, Sister!’

‘There is “a place for everything, and everything in its place”, to quote the old saying, because the most orderly way of doing things is also the most efficient, and we need hospitals to be efficient. Not, of course,’ here she paused and smiled at the junior nurse, ‘that we must ever forget that we are dealing with people first and foremost, and therefore if a patient was depressed or worried about something then I’d expect you to find the time to sit down and talk to them. I wouldn’t bite your head off just because you’d missed a bit of ward-cleaning!’

‘No, Sister,’ said Daisy Galloway, and she tipped two ampicillin capsules into the top of the bottle and showed them to Jenny.

‘And why don’t we tip the tablets on to the palm of our hand,’ queried Jenny, ‘which would be the most natural thing to do?’

‘Because the patient’s drugs don’t want to be covered in the sweat from our hands,’ answered Daisy.

‘Even though, as a nurse, you should make sure your hands are thoroughly clean at all times?’ teased Jenny, and the junior laughed.

Jenny stood and watched while the patient took the tablets before neatly signing the drug chart. They moved along to the next bed, a new admission—a woman of fifty who had come in to have a hip replacement. Her operation was scheduled for the following morning, and she would probably only be written up for routine pre- and post-operative drugs, but Jenny pulled out the drug chart to check.

She bit her lip in annoyance to see that Leo Trentham’s large, untidy signature was scrawled all over it, but what was worse was the fact that he had chosen to write up the drugs in the most lurid shade of violet that she had ever seen.

Nurse Galloway noticed her frown and peered at the chart. ‘That’s certainly unconventional, Sister!’ she exclaimed.

‘It’s an eyesore,’ said Jenny curtly before shutting it swiftly. Why couldn’t he behave a little more responsibly? That kind of behaviour was more typical of a medical student than a qualified surgeon!

As they moved down the ward, Jenny discovered that Dr Trentham also had a penchant for writing in emerald green and turquoise—anything, in fact, other than the usual black or blue. Unconventional? He was that all right.

After the drug round the morning staff returned, and Jenny was given the report by the agency staff nurse.

The girl’s pale eyes glanced at her slyly. ‘Are you feeling better now, Sister?’

‘I’m fine, thanks, Staff,’ said Jenny briskly and smiled, her eyes on the Kardex, showing that she wished to proceed.

‘Fancy fainting at the sight of Leo, although I can’t say that I blame you—he’s bloody gorgeous, isn’t he?’

Jenny was not standing for that. ‘I did not faint at the sight of Dr Trentham; I had received some very bad news, and I would prefer it if you refrained from using first-name terms with the medical staff—it confuses the students.’ Her voice was not unkind, but the firmness of it indicated that she meant what she said.

‘Yes, Sister ,’ answered the girl sulkily, the emphasis on her title steeped in sarcasm, and Jenny’s heart sank. What was happening today? She seemed to be falling out with everyone. She knew a moment’s longing for the days before her holiday, for the easy camaraderie with Judy Collins and Dr Marlow. But she stifled her sigh. Those days were gone now, and she was going to have to work with these new people, like it or not. She attempted to inject a note of friendliness into her voice.

‘Of course, we can use first names in the office.’

‘Of course.’ The sarcastic reply was one of thinly veiled insolence, but Jenny decided to let it pass.

‘And what is your name, Staff? Doesn’t your agency provide you with a name-badge?’

The pale eyes lacked any warmth. ‘All they provide me with is a cheque at the end of each week—and that’s the way I like it.’

Jenny’s heart sank once more. She hoped that this girl was going to fit in. Most agency staff nurses she had worked with were fine, but she had known of one or two who had very odd personalities, girls who were interested only in the higher rates of pay which agencies provided. Girls who had been unable to find a permanent job elsewhere, for one reason or another. Some had been lazy so that she had had to chivvy them into doing work; they had never found work for themselves—and there was always something to do on a ward—but had had to be asked to do it.