The beginning of the change phase

I’m starting a tour of nights and, to be honest, even though twelve jobs came and went, only a few are worth reporting.

I met a lovely family from Saudi Arabia whose mum felt unwell but was just suffering a viral infection. I got on so well with them that later on, after I’d agreed that mum could get on with her night and go out to the West End, I ran into them and we all chatted on the pavement. Only two of the daughters spoke good English but their mum was still up for a laugh and we joked regardless of the language barrier. I learned a lot about people from Saudi in that short time. Photo’s were taken like we were all old friends and then they went onto their futures. They made my night.

The in-between call that depressed my warm, fuzzy feelings, took me to a park where a 20 year-old man was behaving like a two year-old child after having taken in a little alcohol. According to his friends this often happened and it didn’t take much booze to do it. The hint, I would suggest later on to him and his mates, is not to drink at all.

He wailed and cried and thrashed and refused all help until I bundled him, with the help of a couple of police officers, one of whom I seemed to click with as if we’d been friends for ages, into the car until an ambulance arrived and the not-amused crew took charge of him.

I chatted for a while to the Ulster-born cop and we bantered about the job and the rotten politics of it all. It made us feel better I guess. Then I left and he and his partner attempted to go home. Unfortunately, as a passing police officer told me, his car had a flat battery so he was going nowhere. Poor sod.

The last patient of the shift ruined it. She called an ambulance for a swollen ankle, probably caused by an infection. Her room was littered with needles and syringes and she was the shape and size of a self-neglecting drug addict. She’d refused to be taken to hospital earlier, so this was the second time an emergency ambulance had been called for her. Nobody was impressed... least of all me.

Be safe.