I finish typing up my notes into June’s file, wondering how long she is going to be kept waiting for her X-ray. I am contemplating a quick trip back to the common room to scoff down my bacon sandwich, which I have left on the windowsill by the water-cooler, when I see Louise walking towards me. No sooner has she waltzed off in her feminist huff, I think, than she is straight back. I smile. Her pale blue eyes are looking slightly desperate, like she needs some help.
‘Please,’ she says, handing me the notes, ‘take the bloke in cubicle three.’
‘Well …’ I hesitate.
‘I will owe you.’
The idea of Louise owing me something is enough to make me acquiesce to almost anything. ‘Yes, of course,’ I reply.
‘He’s got something stuck on his cock,’ she says.
‘His cock?’
‘Yup, some sort of scaffolder’s spanner,’ she says, walking off in the opposite direction.
‘He’s a scaffolder?’
‘I have no idea,’ she says, over her shoulder. ‘Thanks, you’re a mate.’
I stand behind the pistachio curtain and inhale before drawing it back. ‘Morning! And how are we in here?’ I look down to see a big bald bloke in his forties, covered in large sailor-blue tattoos, with what looks like a handcuff still attached to one hand. Next to him is standing what I presume to be his wife/girlfriend/partner, dressed in a lemon-yellow T-shirt and pink leggings, with a very concerned expression on her craggy face as she stands over him, mincing her hands. They both smell slightly of old booze.
‘Oh doctor,’ says the bloke, looking like he is in great pain. ‘It’s my dick!’
‘Right,’ I say, pulling back the sheet.
Jesus Christ! I can see what he means. Not only has he got a scaffolder’s spanner stuck at the base of his cock but the whole thing has swollen up like a great big red-purple-blue beachball.
‘That looks sore,’ I say, feeling my legs wanting to cross in sympathy. ‘How did you do that?’
‘Well …’ He inhales, then winces. ‘You tell ’im, Sheila.’
Sheila shifts from one foot to the next, turns slightly pink, and then goes on to explain that they were having a bit of fun what with this, that and the other when Dave suggested that she put the spanner on the end of his penis and handcuff him and lead him around the house a bit. ‘It was all a bit of a laugh, you see,’ she says, looking at me through smudged make-up.
‘I see,’ I say, not really seeing how being led around a room by your cock could ever be a great laugh, but each to their own.
‘And then we fell asleep,’ says Dave.
‘And we woke up to this,’ adds Sheila, looking down at Dave’s massively engorged penis.
Apparently, the first thing they did was call the fire brigade. They turned up, managed not to laugh, and told him they could take the spanner off but the cock would come too. Obviously deciding that was not the best course of action, they came to A&E.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘I will first of all give you an IV of fluids and a nice strong painkiller and then I think we might have to squeeze your penis a bit and see if we can get that spanner off.’
‘OK,’ nods Dave, rubbing his handcuffed hand over the top of his bald head, psyching himself up. ‘Go ahead, doc.’ He pauses. ‘I’m not going to lose my dick, am I?’
‘Not if I have anything to do with it.’ I smile. ‘Nurse,’ I say, turning to Margaret, who is behind me, doing her best not to laugh, ‘IV fluids and—’
‘Right away, doctor!’ she squeaks before running out of the cubicle.
I am about to march after her, either to accuse her of being unprofessional or have a quick laugh with her, when all hell breaks loose outside in the corridor. There’s a lot of shouting and screaming and then a group of four paramedics in green jumpsuits come bursting through the swing doors, wheeling a trolley on which, underneath a blanket, is a writhing, screaming patient.
‘Out the way! Out the way! Out the way!’ yells a big ginger bloke, pushing and barging people to the left and right. ‘Give us some room here!’
I’ve seen him about before, but never have I seen him looking this goddamn focused.
‘Burns!’ he barks. ‘About forty-five per cent burns!’
Louise and the senior consultant, Mr Williams, who must have literally just arrived for what he thought would be the relaxing early-morning shift, come careering towards me.
‘White, male,’ continues the ginger paramedic. ‘Set fire to himself in Sainsbury’s car park at seven thirty this morning—’
‘Resus bay,’ orders Mr Williams, pointing to the one right next to mine.
‘—using petrol. We received the call almost immediately from the security guard who had seen it all on CCTV. We arrived about ten minutes later but not before he’d managed to do himself some serious damage.’
‘Fluids?’ asks Mr Williams.
‘Yup.’
The writhing, screaming man under the blanket is slowly surrounded by more and more nurses and doctors bringing fluids and painkillers and bandages. He must be very miserable indeed, I think, walking over to the other side of the department in search of a baby blood pressure cuff. He has done himself some serious damage; 45 per cent is life-threatening. Actually, any burn can be life-threatening, it just depends on how young and well you are to start off with. A month ago we had a ninety-eight-year-old woman in with a small burn, 11 to 12 per cent. She’d got it in the bath. The hot tap was running and she was too old and frail to turn it off, and she got stuck in there. Eventually she was found by a carer and was brought in. The terrible thing was, even as I examined her, I knew she wasn’t going to survive. She was too old for us to operate on, because the anaesthetic would kill her, and if we didn’t operate on her she would die. And she did. It took a couple of weeks. She slipped away. Slowly but surely she got weaker and weaker. It was very depressing to watch. I did go and see her, and every day I talked to her a bit more, and every day she talked to me a little less.
We get quite a few of those types of domestic burns in here. Small children who have spilt hot cups of tea or coffee over themselves. We had three members of one family come in last week because the grandfather had decided to put some liquid accelerant on a barbecue that was already alight. The wind blew and the flames went all over his daughter and two grandchildren. They were 30 per cent burns.
There are three types of burn: accident, assault and self-immolation. Bizarrely, people setting fire to themselves due to depression is the most common cause of major burns. Although we have had a spate recently of very burnt drug addicts who were all stealing copper piping. As the price of copper increases, so does its scrap value; the only problem is that when these guys steal it they forget that there is usually gas running through it and it blows up in their faces. We have had three in the last two months.
By the time I get back to my cubicle, Margaret’s great big morphine shot has clearly worked its magic because Sheila has left the area and Dave is fast asleep, with his swollen cock hanging out for all to see. I take a deep breath, snap on a surgical glove and take a firm hold of his penis. I massage and squeeze, trying to encourage the blood back down, through the spanner. Dave starts to moan. I can only hope it’s through pain and not pleasure.
Next door, I can hear the resus team battling to help the screaming burns victim. There are monitors bleeping, and the sound of dressing packets being torn open. I look down and stop tugging. Dave’s penis seems a little bit smaller, although his snores are getting louder. I get out the baby blood pressure cuff, wrap it around the blue/red member and start to pump it up. Over the little hissing noises, I hear Dave break wind.
Why is it that I always get the glory jobs?
9–10 a.m.
I have to say I’m not sure who is more relieved when the spanner finally comes off, Dave or me. Dave is obviously chuffed that he hasn’t actually lost his cock after one night of fooling around with his missus, and I am only too delighted not to have to tug and massag
e another man’s penis any longer than is actually necessary. Dave hasn’t got off scot-free, though, as he’ll be out of action for a while, waiting for the swelling to go down completely and the sensation to return. However, one thing is certain: he will now be slightly more circumspect when it comes to bringing his work tools home with him.
‘Sorry about that,’ says Louise as she comes out of the resus cubicle, wiping away a strand of sweaty dark hair with the back of a gloved hand. ‘It’s just I had to squeeze a penis for over an hour at the weekend after the tip had become so engorged the foreskin couldn’t get over the end of it. It was tight around the end of the knob like some rubber band.’
‘Right,’ I say, trying to put the painful and at the same time extremely pleasurable image out of my mind.
‘Anyway, the man was remarkably ungrateful,’ she says.
‘The fool.’ I laugh.
‘He was more than that,’ she responds, her brown eyes narrowing. ‘I practically got repetitive strain injury.’ She holds up her hand and simulates the move.
All I can think of is her lucky, lucky boyfriend.
‘How’s it going in there?’ I ask, swiftly changing the subject, looking over her shoulder at the now quiet burns man who is almost completely swaddled in bandages.
‘Ba-a-ad,’ she whispers. ‘Fifty-fifty I’d say. Mr Williams has put a call in to Plastics to see if they can do anything to make him more comfortable.’
‘I presume he meant to do it?’
‘He’s not saying. I’m not sure he can speak at the moment, he’s in shock.’
She walks off. I wander over to the doors to the waiting room. I can see through the glass panels that the place is beginning to fill up with the usual sprains and tumbles as the real world gets out of bed, has its breakfast, buys its newspapers and heads off to work. Judging by the number of falls down stairs, slips in the shower and trips over the dog we get at this time in the morning, getting up is a hazardous process indeed.
Come nine a.m., along with those who find getting to work a little difficult, we also start to get the lonely. There is normally a collection of old ladies who like to use the cosy confines of the A&E waiting room as a bit of a drop-in centre. Some of them wake up, realize they are not going to see anyone all day, so get themselves all dressed up and off to A&E for a chat, a cup of tea and a biscuit, which is what the nurses give them for making the effort to come in. Others call an ambulance. Not something we encourage, obviously, as an ambulance costs around £800 a pop, but somehow it’s hard to get cross with them. Around lunchtime there is normally quite a gathering. They tend to favour the far corner of the waiting room, near the table covered in crumpled magazines, where they pile up the free newspapers. It’s closest to the telly. And they all quite like a bit of Jeremy Kyle with their Rich Tea. I can see a couple of them already ensconced in the corner, thick coats and glasses on. They look settled in for the day.
I walk up to the desk in the corner of the department, next to the door of Andrea’s office. I wait for a few minutes for Ewan, a fellow senior house officer, to finish up. Mr Williams is sitting half-buttocked on the desk, on the phone.
‘Can you bloody believe it,’ he says to either or both of us, as he covers the receiver with his hand. ‘I have been on hold for seven minutes now while they try and track down a plastic bloody surgeon to come look at our burns bloke. I mean, what else are they supposed to be doing up there? Dolly Parton’s tits?’
‘I think those might have been done already,’ I suggest.
‘What?’ he says, looking at me as if for the first time.
‘Dolly Parton’s tits?’
‘Yes, yes,’ he says, rustling some papers in front of him. ‘Also I couldn’t park this morning. There are just not enough spaces for the consultants.’
And their big fat cars, I think. I don’t know what it is about consultants and their cars, but as soon as they get their consultancy they feel the need to embrace their inner pimp and buy themselves a ridiculous set of shut-up-and-look-at-my-cock wheels. The hospital car park is full of them. Half of those motors wouldn’t look out of place at Old Trafford – there are Porsches, Mercs, BMWs and a very tasty collection of Maseratis. Most of the consultants easily clear over £150,000 a year working for the NHS alone, not including private practice, so it isn’t surprising they can afford to shell out on fancy cars. But they all seem to think they have to. And they also park so badly. When I worked in Bognor there was a swinging-dick surgeon who used to park his red Porsche on the yellow zigzags outside A&E. There is a culture of not wanting consultant surgeons to come into the hospital in a bad mood, so they are allowed to park how and where they like.
The parking pisses everyone off here, especially the relatives who want to come and visit. Not only do they have to pay, earning the NHS £110 million a year in fees, but there is never anywhere to put your vehicle. The main problem is that the visiting hours are the same for every ward on the hospital, so everyone arrives and leaves at the same time. If only visiting times were staggered, that would in turn stagger the pressure on the visitors’ car park. It seems so simple. But nothing is ever simple here. In fact, mention parking at the beginning of an hour-long meeting in this building and it would be the only thing discussed.
‘So I’ve popped the Beemer on some double yellows round the back,’ announces Mr Williams.
‘Right,’ says Ewan. ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine there.’
‘Mmm.’ He pauses. ‘So, have you guys thought about fundraising ideas for the Da Vinci Robot?’
‘Do we really need one?’ says Ewan.
‘Of course we do!’ says Mr Williams, looking shocked that Ewan doesn’t think that over £1.2 million of surgical equipment is a must-have in these cash-strapped times. Pioneered in London and developed and manufactured in California, the Da Vinci Robot is a means of carrying out extreme tremor-free microsurgery, and Mr Williams is clearly of the view that any hospital worth its subsidy should have one. ‘Guildford’s got one, for Chrissake.’
‘I think Alison’s going off there tomorrow,’ says Ewan.
‘What, Alison with the double D-cup?’ queries Mr Williams.
A senior consultant and a real A&E pro, Chris Williams is lean and fit, with brown hair that is turning steely-grey at the temples. He is great in a crisis, capable of cracking a chest on a trolley and delivering a baby in a lift. He is knocking fifty and very much old-school. He always says that he trained when doctors were real men and they had to do a thousand-hour week, drink fifteen pints of vodka and still sleep with all the nurses. He has a good line in banter and is a great favourite with the old ladies, but he is also a talented surgeon, and no one can work out why he isn’t making a fortune in the private sector and is still flogging his guts out in A&E. Perhaps he enjoys the rush? Just as other consultants love being called off the golf course, or out of their child’s first birthday party, for an urgent life-saving operation – maybe it’s the need to be needed that rocks his boat? Or maybe he’s just really old-fashioned and likes helping people. All I know is that he is an A&E specialist and he is one of the best, even if he is a little bit lascivious around the edges.
‘Fuck it,’ says Chris, suddenly getting off the desk, ‘I’m too busy for this. Take it.’ He hands the receiver to Ewan. ‘And tell them when they have finished making a seventy-five-year-old banker’s wife look twelve that we’d like someone down here to check out the grade three burns on my patient to see if we can do anything for him tonight or if we can book him in for an op tomorrow. OK?’
‘OK.’ Ewan nods, picking up the phone. ‘Do you want any surgeon in particular?’
‘Nope,’ says Chris, disappearing off down a corridor. ‘Just get through to bloody someone.’
Ewan busies himself holding the phone and picking his ear, while I briefly type in a few notes about Dave’s tremendously swollen cock. Then, just as I am finishing up, I look over the computer at the door to Andrea’s office, which is slightly ajar. Through the
crack, I recognize the blonde bobbing head of Margaret, who seems to be on her knees with her face embedded in a pair of trousers. I give Ewan a whack in the gut to get his attention.
‘Jesus,’ he says as he looks over, the scene slowly dawning on him. ‘It’s a bit early for that.’
‘Last day of term, I suppose,’ I say with a grin as I try to work out who is being relieved so pleasurably in what is effectively matron’s office.
Ewan and I are still watching when the door swings open a little more to reveal Steve looking straight back at us, zipping up his fly. A good-looking SHO from Manchester who is moving back up north to specialize in paediatrics, he is always lucky with the ladies.
‘Ah, great! There you are, Margaret,’ booms Chris’s voice from behind me.
Margaret leaps up and turns around rather red-faced, running her hands through her hair. The blonde strands that normally fall forward suddenly appear slicked back. She looks extremely sheepish. Fortunately, Chris is too distracted to notice.
‘Your hair is looking good,’ he says.
I look at Steve, who turns puce, and Ewan, who bites the side of his cheek. I can’t begin to catch Margaret’s eye.
‘Thanks,’ she somehow manages to say.
‘Now,’ Chris continues, ‘this is Mr Berry and he is our new A&E manager. He used to work with Asda so he is very qualified to look after us lot.’ He tugs at a clump of his greying hair and looks towards the heavens for some sort of intervention or explanation. ‘Anyway, Mr Berry, this is Margaret, one of our best nurses. She’ll show you around the place.’
Hospital Babylon Page 3
