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After the lawyers have had a good long look at it.

OK, I'll publish the non-libellous bit ...
You'll just have to wait for the rest...
What else has been happening? In an attempt to try and raise moral in the dept and give the Regs a chance to informally chat and air their grievances, a barbecue was organised in Bel Air last weekend. Thankfully it was a gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky. There was a good consultant showing, not bad from those rotated out to other hospitals and specialities. And you can imagine how many of the Regs currently working in the dept turned up. (Actually it was quite predictable, when you looked at the rota – all of those who turn up were either working or on holiday).

The blokes played footie while the rest of us stood around and chatted. Actually Claire and I went off to the Nursery – which specialises in native plants. So I can fill in the gaps that have appeared in the yard throughout the summer and the heatwave.

Sunday I spent doing chores. I’ve got to start using up what’s in the cupboard. So a mincemeat (I’d forgotten how alcoholic that stuff is), pear and frangipane tart (my pastry’s improving slowly) and some oat biscuits (see the other blog for the recipe).

When I took the biccies into work, one of the nurses took one look and said “Oh good, Anzac biscuits” and proceeded to reel off the recipe. As though they were something special. I’m amused.

It’s the best way to get rid of food (and to get on the right side of people at work) – take in food. Kind of brightens the day. The other thing that brightened my day was realising that my German is not O-Level / School-girl level. No. It’s about the level of “demented old lady” after I spent 10 minutes talking a sort of English/German hybrid. And having a conversation! I don’t think that’s a good thing.
I finish work in a couple of weeks. My visa is up on the 1st July, so officially the 30th June, but I’ve got holiday and days-in-lieu. I’ve booked to go an a tour from Broome to Darwin via the Kimberly. So I hope it should be pretty special. Which leaves me 12 days to do stuff before I leave. Perhaps stuff that is slightly cheaper. My plans have been slightly curtailed by having to transfer money from my account here into my current a/c back home as the darling building society won’t let me get at my money. I logged on to transfer some to be told I couldn’t do it as I didn’t have a “card reader”. A what? How exactly am I supposed to know I am supposed to have one if you don’t send me one, or tell me when it’s applicable from. I think I’d have been slightly less incandescent of the girl in the call centre hadn’t sounded like she really didn’t give a toss. She probably didn’t, but you don’t let people know that.

Stroppy letter in the post. And thankful that the dollar is strong at the mo – but it leaves me a little strapped over here. Which does make all the above negotiations stick in the craw slightly – I’m paid about half of what the consultants are to do the same job.
I don’t often talk about work. Partly because it’s not fair to the patients – even brief, oblique references nowhere near confidential, but still I wouldn’t like to be talked about, so do as you would be done by. And partly because most of it really isn’t that interesting, despite what you may all think. The things that make it worth while are little old ladies who say “Thank you”, the colleagues (nurses, Drs, clerks) who keep asking me when my leaving drinks are and the little laughs. (Actually maybe they want to make sure I really go). Every job has the mundane, and in ours that’s most of it. There are shifts when all I do is nag. Sometimes I may not even get involved with many patients but to keep the department flowing often doesn’t involve that. Most of what we do is get patients sorted into a holding pattern where they can recover, which to be honest they would probably do anyway because that’s what we’re designed to do. The sense of achievement is often much smaller.

Similarly there are the bad parts. Grumpy colleagues who just can’t be arsed because you haven’t sorted everything out to the nth degree, even when you’re asking for help. Difficult patients who seem to think that because they can fit Senior Politician’s names (or worse the Chief Exec) into the conversation that somehow they will get different / preferential treatment; the ones who turn up wanting god-knows-what, but not what you can offer; private hospitals who take one look at a patient and close the doors because they don’t fit their nice, clean criteria.
So last night wasn’t a bad night. It was an average Friday night. It didn’t throw up anything that you’d expect from a Friday – the same round of sick patients, difficult patients (which doesn’t stop the sick patients coming in, Sir) and drug addicts. But for once I actually felt as though I “saved a patient’s life”. It really doesn’t happen that often that you get that feeling. But last night I did. I took a sick patient and with an actually very small, simple thing by the time we’d finished he was in a position to get better. Not to die as he’d been desperately trying to do when he arrived. And of course, over the next few days I may find out that all I was doing was delaying the inevitable. But that’s not the point.

Actually, sometimes when a patient is trying to die it’s right to say “enough”, let’s just make them comfortable and peaceful. Quite often it is, actually, just depends on the patient. But sometimes you can make a difference. It’s an intense feeling, it’s not necessarily a big deal, but it makes the job worth doing. It’s why we do Emergency.

Why am I writing this? Partly because I can’t yet publish most of what I’ve written, plus I guess to show that it’s not all negative, that sometimes it’s the best job in the world

And sometimes it ain’t.