The Complete Blood, Sweat and Tea

Just in from my late-shift and feeling more upbeat than normal. Tonight I delivered my first baby … and yet I can still turn this happy event into a rant.

Picture the scene: you are a midwife (this means you have a chip on your shoulder the size of the African debt), and a lady comes in to your maternity department in the second stage of labour. Do you …

(a) Say hello, take a room and we’ll have that baby out as soon as we can,

or …

(b) Tell them to go home and come back when the pain gets worse.

Guess which answer results in your baby being delivered by an ambulance bloke who has 1 day’s training in maternity (and who, to be honest, slept through most of it)?

Then when I take mother and baby into the same maternity department are you …

(a) Vaguely apologetic, or …

(b) Snotty towards the ambulance crew who did your work for you?

Can you guess that tonight I got (b) for both questions?

Otherwise it was a nice simple delivery, with dad shooting pictures on his mobile phone sending them to all and sundry while his wife was lying, bloodstained and naked on a leather sofa. Blood went all over that sofa, which come summer will start to smell just a little rank. Blood also went all over me (note to self – must remember to pack Wellington boots next time) and my acting skills (‘Don’t worry mum, all normal, I’ve done hundreds of deliveries’) were tested to the limit.

… and I didn’t have to pick up any alcoholics.

Why Would People Even Think It?

I have sometimes been astounded by the bloodymindedness of people, and sometimes by their stupidity. Now I am astonished at their petty nastiness.

I’m driving my ‘big-white-van-with-blue-flashing-lights-and-a-siren’ to a 1-year-old child with difficulty in breathing. While passing a group of youths on the pavement, one of them thinks that it would be a good idea to throw his bottle of coke at the ambulance, thus spraying my screen, obscuring my vision and nearly causing me to swerve into oncoming traffic.

All I can say is that it is lucky for them that I was going to a call, because if I hadn’t I’d have shoved my boot up their arse.

Where in the tiny recesses of their minds does it seem like a good idea to throw something at an ambulance running on lights and sirens?

All I hope is that one day they need me – something likely, given the amount of people like that who get stabbed in my neck of the woods – and I’m just that little too slow to save their worthless skins.

Payment Point

I get called to a lot of RTAs (that is, for the uninformed, ‘Road Traffic Accident’). I’d say that 90% of these are diagnosed as ‘whiplash’ (which is a muscular sprain of the neck – this is a minor injury that is treated with painkillers); I’d suggest that over half of these are an attempt to gain insurance money. In the ambulance trade we call this the ‘Payment Point’, referring to the point in the neck that is painful, and pays out the money.

Tonight I saw the most blatant attempt to get money from an ‘accident’.

I was called to a flyover where two cars had been in a near collision, yes, a near collision. There was no damage to either vehicle, neither were there any skidmarks on the road. The ‘patient’ was the passenger of the car, and complained of pain on the right side of his neck. He was desperate to go to hospital, for what reason I did not know, as there was obviously no injury.

This was made even more evident when he forgot what side of his neck the pain was on. When I called him on this he pretended not to know what I was talking about.

Even the police were not above making fun of this idiot.

It probably didn’t help that he was 10 years younger than me and cruising around in a red sports car.

Of course RTA is now RTC (Road Traffic Collision), because if it’s an ‘accident’ then the police can’t prosecute anyone.

Single

Although I do love my job dearly, there are a number of disadvantages. At the moment I am a ‘relief’ worker, which means although I have a main station, I can be sent anywhere in London to cover absences and holidays in the ‘Core’ staff. I also don’t have a regular crewmate … I am essentially the whore of the London Ambulance Service.

So, at the moment I am sitting on my backside at my main station with no-one to work with, watching daytime TV.

Bored, Bored, Bored, Bored …

Of course, at some point in the next 12 hours I could be rushing off anywhere in London. Being on strange stations is actually quite good fun, as you get to meet new people and, let’s face it, in this job moving around London just means ‘same shit, different scenery’.

… But at the moment I’m bored …

Daytime TV, the ambulance relief’s worst enemy. Thankfully I’m no longer a relief – I’m ‘Core’ staff now, which means I have a regular partner and I work mainly out of one station.

Some People Just Can’t Wait

So, there I am in my ambulance helping a bloke who was actually quite ill, when all of a sudden the back doors fly open and some idiot decides to start berating me because I’m blocking the road. Needless to say I am not pleased at this, not only because it is embarrassing for the patient, but also because of the sheer bloody cheek of this person. When I tell her (very politely mind you) to bugger off, she replies with the old favourite ‘I’m a taxpayer and I pay your wages’. At this I remind her that my patient, my crewmate and I also pay taxes. At this she is a bit nonplussed, yet still she continues to moan that there is no need for me to block the road.

In any event, I did need to block the road, I don’t do it on purpose, but it is more important to get to the patient quickly.

This woman’s moaning then gets other drivers upset and they start honking their horns, and the only way I get rid of the woman who was in such a hurry was to pull the door shut after me and tell her to imagine her relative in the ambulance …

I didn’t hurry treating the patient either.

The same thing has happened on more than one occasion. Now I simply ask the complainer that if it was them rolling around in agony, would they like to have to wait while I find a better place to park?

Maybe it’s Because I’m a Londoner

Research carried out by the London Ambulance Service for our ‘No Send’ policy has shown that 59% of Londoners think that they will get seen quicker in A&E (Accident and Emergency department) if they arrive in an ambulance.

This … Is … Not … True …

In fact, if you come to A&E after calling an ambulance for something minor, the nursing staff will be more inclined to send you out to the waiting room and forget about you.

I was an A&E nurse for a long time – just trust me on this …

Also, Londoners call for three times the number of ambulances for ’flu than in any other English city. Half the time the patient has got a cold and not ’flu at all, and just needs to work it out of their system. Even if they did have ’flu, there is little the hospital could do for them anyway.

Coupled with high population densities, lack of staff and vehicles, speed-bumps everywhere and heavy traffic, is it any wonder we are having trouble hitting the 8-minute deadline we have to make 75% of calls in?

Nice New Motors

The London Ambulance Service is giving us poor ambulance staff shiny new ambos to drive … well, puke yellow rather than shiny … but they are new. These are Mercedes Sprinters outfitted in ‘EURO RAL 1016 Yellow’ which is apparently the most striking colour available and is used throughout the European Union. They have lots of nice new bits for us to play with. Most importantly, they have a tail lift so now we don’t need to break our backs lifting some 20-stone lump into the back of the motor (20 stone is 127 kilograms for those using ‘new money’).

I was asked by a friend what I thought of them, and having just finished my ‘Familiarisation Course’ (4 hours of playing with the new toy) I must say I do like it. Not only is the engine more responsive when moving off, but the brakes also work that bit better than our old LDVs (Leyland Daf vans) and the interior is much more professional looking.

The only real problem I foresee is that the tail lift needs around 4 yards to unload the trolley and around London this means that we will have to park in the middle of the road, blocking off other traffic. So, if you do see one of us blocking your way, please realise that there is no way we can park the things and be sure of being able to load a patient on board as well.