Читать книгу More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea - Tom Reynolds - Страница 9

I think I’m going to be leaving my job soon.

I went to a six-month-old baby with possible meningitis. The baby had the right sort of rash (although it was only on the back of the knee and, after checking, nowhere else). It had a temperature, but was one of the happiest, most alert children I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. It just didn’t seem as if it had meningitis, and trust me, I’ve seen a fair few children and adults with it so I have a pretty good idea what it looks like.

Then, as in the past, I was left waiting for an ambulance.

For around 45 minutes.

There was no way I was going to be able to transport the patient in my car. It’s just not equipped to carry such a small child. We don’t have baby seats and as the family didn’t have a car they didn’t have one either.

So the family ended up phoning a friend to take them to the hospital. The ambulance turned up just as they were getting into their friend’s car.

All I had going through my head was the potential newspaper headline ‘No Ambulance For Baby Dying Of Killer Bug!’

Later that night I went to a woman who was having an extremely painful miscarriage. There is nothing I can do for that on scene, the patient needs to be in hospital. Thankfully the ambulance wasn’t too far behind me, but if I had been waiting on scene then it would have been a very awkward and distressing wait (again, because of the pain, it would have been impossible to transport her in my car).

More and more I’m looking at my watch as an ambulance fails to arrive. It’s only a matter of time before I have someone die in front of me while waiting for an ambulance.

So, I’m seriously considering leaving the FRU and going back to work on an ambulance. That way I can pick up sick people, and take them to where they need to be: a hospital.

So after the holiday season, I think I’ll be sending a memo up to the office asking to return to my ambulance role.