Finally, I was alone in the dark and gloomy room, except for a little mouse that went scuttling by. I felt exhausted and worn down with sadness, and I sat down, held my head in my hands, and sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed. For so many people, for so many sadnesses, and tonight especially for the tragedy of that young man.
Chapter Seventeen
Being called to an attempted suicide was, sadly, not unusual. Everyone dreaded hearing the Code Blue call. As I raced along the long corridors to C Wing, I had no idea if I was going to be too late. Officers and nurses were also running from different directions to the same location.
Every year I attended a refresher course in Intermediate Life Support, because it was so commonly needed in prisons, and I was always grateful for the annual update.
There wasn’t much of a crowd gathered on the landing outside the cell, so I presumed that the poor man had only just been found.
When I arrived, out of breath, I was relieved to find that a doctor I had never met before was already there, applying chest compressions. He looked up at me through his dark floppy hair, which was clumped together with sweat. CPR was hard work, which is why it was usually necessary to take it in turns.
‘Thank God you’re here,’ he said.
I dropped to my knees beside the prisoner, ready to take over. The cell seemed smaller than most, although it probably only felt that way. The young doctor shuffled around one to where a nurse had been crouched, giving the man oxygen via the Ambubag. The nurse rose to his feet, retreating to the doorway.
‘Don’t stand there,’ the young doctor said. ‘You’re blocking the bloody light.’
Tempers were frayed, although that was no excuse for rudeness.
I missed my friend Zaid, and our lunch breaks watching the rats. He’d had enough of the politics going on between the Security and the Healthcare departments. Frustrated with the difficulty of getting patients to their hospital appointments, he’d decided to stop working at the Scrubs, which had saddened me.
Zaid wouldn’t have lost his temper, I thought, as I crossed my hands and started pumping the man’s chest.
One, two, three . . .
I wondered why the man had tried to hang himself.
Four, five, six . . .
He was a white man, I guessed in his mid-fifties. His neck showed angry red ligature marks from his strangulation.
Seven, eight, nine . . .
‘How long has he been like this?’ I asked.
The new doctor grimaced. ‘Over five minutes.’
‘Oh!’ I puffed, between compressions, worried about how long the inmate might have been starved of oxygen. I kept pumping, and counting. Every thirty compressions, the doctor would give the man two bursts of oxygen from the air bag. Thankfully, reinforcements arrived very quickly with the defibrillator, and the pads were applied to his chest. An officer had already ripped the inmate’s T-shirt open to get access. The machine’s robotic voice said, ‘Shock required; Shock now; Shock.’
‘Clear!’ shouted the new doctor. I slid back quickly, the metal of the bed frame digging into my back.
The prisoner’s body convulsed into the air as the doctor pressed the shock button.
My heart was racing as we continued our resuscitation attempt until, thank God, the paramedics arrived.
By then several officers and two more nurses, including Sylvie, had appeared.
As the paramedics carried the prisoner off to the ambulance, a stunned silence hung in the cell as we digested the drama of the last ten minutes and the relief that we had managed to keep him alive.
I rose to my feet, shaking the blood back into my legs, and made my way over to where Sylvie was leaning over the railings. I joined her, resting my forearms on the metal. She glanced at me sideways, sympathetically, not saying a word. She may not have seen the worst of it, but she didn’t have to. We all knew what it was like to be called out to an attempted suicide.
When she finally spoke, the words were music to my ears. ‘Fancy a cuppa?’
‘I’d love one’ I replied instantly.
Before we traipsed back to the nurses’ common room, I turned to one of the nearby officers. ‘Any idea who he is, or anything about him?’
He shook his head. ‘The only thing I do know is that he was recently given a twelve-year sentence.’
I supposed that he had just shown us how he felt about that. About how capable he felt of being trapped in the Scrubs for that amount of time.
Sylvie and I walked back together in silence, deep in thought.
I wondered how it must feel to face the prospect of spending years in prison, and how desperate that man – who none of us knew – must have felt to try to escape, the only way he could.
Chapter Eighteen
I craved a walk in the fields behind my house. I felt in great need of a dose of nature to soothe away the brutality of the past months – to bring me back into a gentle place, far away from the violence and the noise.
Walking was the therapy I needed to prevent myself from becoming traumatised by all the distressing things I was witnessing on a daily basis.
Working in a prison could be grim, depressing and draining. Reconnecting with the beauty of the world was a tonic for me, an even more important part of my life than it had been before.
As I made my way along the woodland path, the words of one of my favourite poems floated into my head:
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
I had learnt William Henry Davies’ Leisure off by heart when I was a child, and the meaning has never faded from my mind.
I stopped in my tracks, alone in the woods, listening intently to the woodland creatures. The birds, the rustling, the sound of the fallen leaves being swept along by the autumn breeze.
I craned my head to the sky, staring through the canopy at the fluffy white clouds, morphing into different shapes as they sailed past, the words of the poem on my lips.
The world isn’t so bad after all, I smiled to myself.
And its beauty should never be taken for granted. Day in, day out, I was surrounded by people who were stripped of their freedom, who would have done anything to be standing where I was then, taking pleasure in the simple things in life.
All I needed to do was step out of my back door to see greenery. Some of the prisoners I was dealing with would have to wait five, ten, fifteen years to have that pleasure. Some might never be able to walk through a woodland again. The best view they would ever have was of the sky from the exercise yard.
I drew in a deep breath, taking the nature deep into my lungs.
I walked on, thinking about the man who lost his legs, about Azar who struggled so much to adjust, of Jared the teenager I’d met all those years ago. Those people, and many more, stayed with me on my walks. They all, in their different ways, had enriched my life and made me appreciate everything that I had, especially my wonderful family. They had taught me to never envy anyone their wealth or possessions, nor to take my freedom for granted.
At times such thoughts could have brought me to tears, but the words of the poem were making me feel happy and rejuvenated.
I was free, I was healthy, I had everything to live for.
The light grew brighter as I neared the edge of the woodland. The tunnel of trees opened into a paddock, forcing me to squint into the glorious autumn sun. The sweet aroma of the ripe blackberries woven through the hedgerows wafted in my direction.
I stood and stared. A simple forty-five-minute walk had restored my equilibrium, and I felt calm and at peace with the world. I also felt hopeful and positive about my work and that maybe, just occasionally, I could make a difference.
*
My positive thoughts were brought to life the next day while I was walking through B Wing on my way to Healthcare.
The prisoners were out in force, milling around for association hour. When I first started working at the Scrubs I was warned that it wasn’t safe for
me to walk through the wings during association time, nor between the wings during free flow, which is when large groups of prisoners are escorted by officers to different areas of the prison, perhaps to attend education or to go to and from their places of work.
But I wasn’t the slightest bit afraid. I felt like I was part of the furniture. Often the prisoners would stop to shake my hand, say hello, tell me how their day was going, have a moan about something or other, and sometimes we would have a good laugh, as some of their humour was wonderful. I enjoyed the interaction, as it made me feel that I belonged there and was no longer an outsider.
As I passed the pool table, a loud voice from above cut across the chatter.
‘Doc, Doc!’
I swivelled around and looked up.
The man was leaning over the landing watching the world go by, his arms casually resting on the railing.
He smiled broadly.
‘Hi, Doc, do you remember me?’
I recognised him instantly. His story had stayed with me ever since we’d met.
He tried to say something but his words were lost in the noise – the talking, the shouting, the sound of the pool balls smacking against each other, the high ceilings amplifying every little sound.
He held his hand up. ‘Wait a minute, I’m coming down.’
The man flew down the metal stairs at lightning speed, eager to catch up with me.
I greeted him with a warm smile; I was just as happy to see him as he was to see me. We’d only met once, but the feelings he’d invoked had stayed with me.
Slightly out of breath, he puffed, ‘I’ve been hoping to run into you.’
His expression was a far cry from the angry, embittered one that he had worn as he walked into my room all those weeks ago. He looked positively ecstatic.
‘How are you, Ian?’ I asked.
He could hardly contain his happiness. His glacial blue eyes were sparkling with joy, a rare thing to see in the Scrubs.
‘I’ve contacted my mum!’
I was stunned into silence. Not in a million years did I think Ian would have accepted his mother’s olive branch of reconciliation. He had seemed so angry, so bitter about being abandoned and left to grow up in a care home, that I thought there was no chance of him changing his mind. Perhaps my words had hit home?
He looked at me intensely. ‘You were right, Doc. It was worth the risk. My mum is coming to visit me this weekend.’
And then his whole expression seemed to melt, and his eyes sparkled with happiness as he announced, ‘We’re going to be a family again.’
I really wanted to give him the biggest hug, but didn’t dare to in the middle of the wing.
That magical moment confirmed how it’s often the simple things you do for people, things you almost forget as the day whizzes by, that can make the biggest difference. Those few encouraging words I had said to Ian when we first met may have changed his life for ever. I would love to think so.
Having family was usually one of the most important things for the prisoners. Someone to care about them, visit them, wait for them, help them to get back on their feet when they were released. It was often the driving force that helped them cope with being banged up.
It may not have been medicine, but I felt that I had helped heal Ian in a different way. He in turn had made me feel good about the job I was doing. Perhaps it was all worthwhile, and that actually caring that little bit more really was making a difference to some people.
‘Cherish that time with your mum. I hope it all works out. I would love to know how it goes,’ I said, before continuing on my way.
I would have really loved to hear about the reunion with his mum, but the chances were that I would probably never see him again. Some prisoners left my life as quickly as they had entered it. I could only hope that I may have helped a few of them in some way on their journey.
*
There was one prison visitor that never seemed to leave. Most of the time we rubbed along together quite nicely, never getting in each other’s way. But as with all good relationships, there is often a tipping point, as I discovered on my lunch break one day.
For some time, I’d been sneaking off to have a nap in my lunch hour. I followed the same ritual I used in the mornings – unrolling my sleeping bag across three rather grimy-looking chairs, in one of the quiet therapy rooms in the Seacole Centre. Surprisingly, I’d only been disturbed once in the seven years I’d been working at the Scrubs. The nurse must have thought I was a dead body at first. ‘Oh it’s you, Doctor Brown!’ she’d exclaimed, and then left me to it. Within seconds I had fallen back to sleep, I was so tired.
There was one secret ingredient that helped me fall asleep even faster though. Aside from my pillow and my sleeping bag, I always kept a bar of my favourite milk chocolate in my bag.
As I lay snuggled inside my cocoon, my head resting on my travel pillow, I would pull my eye mask down and blindly reach my hand down into my bag and break off a single square of chocolate.
The sensation of it melting in my mouth . . . the heavenly sweet taste . . . and I was asleep within seconds.
Today was no different. The chocolate melted.
I drifted off.
Totally refreshed when I woke, I decided to check on the chocolate – to ensure adequate supplies remained. To my horror, as well as the chocolate I discovered a scattering of mouse droppings in my bag – and they weren’t just in the bag, they were also inside the opened wrapper! I realised that I had almost certainly eaten some with my chocolate! I felt disgusted. I took the bag and all its contents home with me that night, washed everything, and from that day on all consumables were kept in a tightly sealed plastic container!
I blamed myself. I had been stupid to think they wouldn’t have crept into my bag at night for a nibble, as mice were all over the prison.
Not long after that a prisoner on E Wing was moaning to me that he had a Creme Egg on his shelf, that he was saving for a treat, but was dismayed when he woke in the night to find a mouse happily chomping away at it.
I felt for him!
*
The medicine I was practising at the Scrubs was very different from how I’d worked at my old GP practice. Working in the prison felt like firefighting, dealing with one crisis after another. I loved the drama and the excitement, but there was a part of me that was missing the problem-solving side of medicine. So when I was asked to see a young man who was very unwell, I embraced the challenge.
The prisoner staggered into the room, shivering and sweating.
He was a tall, sinewy Somalian man, who I could see from his notes had been transferred from another prison two days previously.
I instinctively went to his side to support him, as he was so unsteady on his feet, and gently helped him onto the couch.
I introduced myself, and asked him to tell me about his symptoms. He just stared through me with a glazed expression, and was unable to answer.
I saw from his notes that he was 23 years of age.
Sylvie had asked me to see him as she was so concerned about him.
‘How long has he been like this?’
She shrugged. ‘Since he arrived, but we don’t know how long he was unwell before he transferred, as there aren’t many notes on him.’
Abdi lay on the couch, and was shaking and sweating. He had a high temperature. Eventually he started to engage and answer my questions. He said that he had a very severe headache, and had been vomiting, and that for the past few weeks he had been feeling tired and non-specifically unwell, and had had a cough.
He had mild neck stiffness but no rash. I then checked his eye movements, and noted that he had nystagmus – an involuntary movement of his eyes. He also flinched away when I pointed a light in his eyes, indicating photophobia. Clearly he was desperately unwell, and needed urgent hospital admission.
I knew, as always, that I would have a battle on my hands to arrange for his admission to hospital. Abdi remained lying on the couch. He was
so tall that his long skinny legs were dangling off the end.
Just as I had finished assessing him, the senior officer in charge of C Wing came in to see me. I hadn’t met him before, although I was sure I’d heard his thick Geordie accent echoing across the wing when I was passing through.
‘What’s going on ’ere, Doc?’ he said, his hands on his hips. ‘Our Sylvie says you might be wantin’ us to take him to hospital.’ He nodded at Abdi.
I was sick and tired of putting up a fight for what I believed to be the right thing.
‘He needs urgent medical attention and has to be admitted today! I suspect that he has a serious infection affecting his nervous system, and likely needs intravenous antibiotics.’
I glanced across to Abdi, but he was so out of it he didn’t even react to what I’d said. I was glad, in a way. I didn’t want to alarm him. However, I knew I had to put a strong case across to get him admitted to hospital.
The officer rolled back onto his heels, laughing. ‘Get away, man, ye joking?’ he scoffed. Tapping his watch, he said, ‘It’s 5 p.m., can’t it wait until we have more officers to cover? He’ll be all right until the mornin’, Doc.’
I was furious! Incensed that someone with no medical training at all should make such a comment!
I was feeling strong, angry and determined. After all the fights I’d had to put up over the years, I was no longer intimidated by the prison officers, whatever their rank.
I mirrored the officer’s hands-on-hips look, and almost hissed the words, ‘He’s got to go in tonight.’
Whatever venom I injected into my voice worked. ‘Whatever you say, Doc,’ the officer said, and with that he radioed Oscar One, to arrange the ambulance.
I returned to Abdi’s side.
‘Well done,’ Sylvie said. ‘I know it’s not easy sometimes.’
She looked down at Abdi, who was floating in and out of consciousness.
‘Are you okay to stay with him?’ I asked Sylvie. ‘I need to be in Reception.’
‘Go, go.’ She waved me off. ‘Of course I’ll stay with him.’
The Prison Doctor Page 13
