Sunday 19 October 2014

Seen in A&E

We do three or four twelve hour shifts a week, and we see EVERYTHING.
  • A nurse covered in white splashes of plaster of paris.
  • A patient being kept nil-by-mouth before going to theatre for emergency surgery, trying to sneak a swig of beer from a can in his bag.
  • A bike helmet, crushed like an eggshell.
  • A floor awash with urine.
  • Doctors and paramedics in bright orange helicopter jumpsuits.
  • Relatives crying and hugging each other.
  • A passport drenched in blood.
  • Porters pushing trolleys around with incredible skill.  How do they never hit anything?
  • Nurses and doctors crowded around the radiographer, who is looking at a patient's brain scan.
  • Nervous looking medical students.
  • People practising walking down the corridors with crutches.
  • A linen skip full of discarded red ambulance blankets.
  • A nurse talking to a patient about cupcake recipes as she puts a needle in his vein to take blood.
  • A man handcuffed to a trolley, escorted everywhere by two tall policemen with crackling radios. 
  • Many, many people whose problems will be solved by going home, taking a paracetamol, and seeing their GP next week.
The new (blue) hospital behind the  old (now a listed building) #london #londonlove #rlh #whitechapel #nofilter
The new, blue, hospital behind the old one

8 comments:

  1. Nancy, you have my complete and utter respect, it must be a very hard job at times. Was it you with the cupcake recipes..?

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    1. Nope! Am not allowed to access veins in any way until I'm fully qualified and have had extra, specialist training. Looking forward to it though.

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  2. You and your colleagues do such an amazing job and must see so many things that must be hard to deal with. I have total respect for you. xx

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  3. What would we all do without people like you and your colleagues in A&E? Thank you!

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  4. Each time I have done triage (initial assessment), about 60 to 70% of the people who arrive at A&E under their own steam (ie not by ambulance or helicopter) do not remotely need to be there and get sent back home to see their GP or pharmacist. A shocking proportion I think.

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  5. Oh I could relate to this list in so many ways :-) Including the 60-70% who need to go home and take a paracetamol. The funniest bit about them is that they and their family are so often disappointed :-) My time in ER will be forever associated with the smell of McDonalds - we had a McDonalds upstairs in the hospital foodcourt - an appalling choice for the children's hospital to have made - and almost every family in ER sat there munching it. Ugh!

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  6. Miss K has had lots of blood tests recently. the nurses played a game with her catching puffa fish bubbles on a giant screen. we wondered if they played it by themselves if there was ever a quiet moment.

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  7. Thank you for all the work done. Nurses have a very stressful job! Big hospital has lots of things happening compared to small towns in the country.

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Even though I often do not have the time to reply to everybody, I really appreciate all your comments so much - thank you for taking the time to read my blog and share your thoughts on what I've written.