New Shoes
I was in the messroom yesterday chatting to one of the ambulance crews, and they told me this story.
They were called to a “psychiatric patient, having a breakdown, going mad”. They arrived and found “psychiatric patient, sitting on the sofa, watching Eastenders”.
“Everything alright here?” asked one of the ambulance crew, confused.
“Yes, everything is fine,” said the psychiatric patient, equally confused. He hadn’t called the ambulance.
At that point, a woman burst into the room and introduced herself as the patient’s social worker. The ambulance crew explained the situation, and motioned to leave.
“You can’t go!” said the social worker.
“But he’s fine!” said the ambulance crew.
“Well, you see,” said the social worker. “His shoes are totally worn out, and he needs new ones!”
“…” said the ambulance crew, even more confused.
“And the pair he’s wearing, he got from A+E,” continued the social worker. “So I thought, if you guys took him there, he could get some new ones!”
on February 19th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
Whyyyyy are people so stuuupid?
on February 19th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
You know, there has to be a feedback mechanism for cases like this. Calling out an ambulance, whether or not they actually transport the chap, costs more than the shoes. You might not be able to charge the general public for misuse of ambulances, but this woman needs to be informed (in very strong terms) that part of her job is _not_ wasting tax money…
on February 19th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
In my opinion, the ambulance service do leave themselves wide open to this kind (and other kinds) of misuse because management seem to be so reluctant to let us say “No!” We have more than enough ambulances to deal with all the genuine calls, but because of people like this there are long delays. Personally, I’d be love to be able to say: “Yes, you can have an ambulance. That’ll be £250.00 plus VAT” and see all the timewasters disappear into the sunset…
on February 19th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
Well. this just furthers my opinion of Social Workers being ven worse than useless. The ones I come into contact with leave children with abusinve, alcoholic parents because “it is best for them to be with their family” and this one thinks this is a good way to get a pair of shoes. Get rid of them all I say!
on February 19th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
hmm. And how do you know the guy on the sofa wasn’t the carer and the woman with a delusion of being a social worker wasn’t the patient? That would explain everything …
on February 19th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
I’m sure not *all* social workers are useless. There was one the other day who received a call from a former client saying he’d taken an overdose and was immensely helpful in helping us locate the patient — he probably saved his life. In any job, there are good people and bad people. Except ambulance call takers, who are all beyond reproach
on February 19th, 2006 at 5:46 pm
One could fill volumes with these sorts of calls, but as Mr. Myers so rightly points out, it is the fault of managers who allow ambulances to be sent in the first place to what are so obviously LOB calls. One can spot them at a glance.
Mind you, if we only went to genuine jobs, ninety-nine percent of us would be out of work.
on February 19th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
Couple of guesses what “new” the patient _really_ needed?
on February 19th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
I totally disagree with Al about all social workers being worse than useless, I think it’s a stupid and crass generalisation.
I’ve been working for Social Services in my county as a Technical Assistant now for well over a year and am the only person in my office who isn’t a social worker. I would have no reason to distrust any of my colleagues and am amazed at the amount of effort and time they put into their work. Some of our ladies have 25+ years of service and won’t be retiring until they are forced to!
Unfortunately as Mark says, there are always a few bad apples and we do have a couple in SS that are absolutely shit, no doubt about that. On the whole however, there are more benefits to the work that Social Workers do than drawbacks from the crap ones.
*Rant Over*
That aside, that social worker sounds like a bit of a tit
on February 20th, 2006 at 5:16 pm
what a complete idiot, and being a social worker means she has been educated, how did she pass any exam???
on February 20th, 2006 at 6:24 pm
Are reports passed back in cases like this? She needs a good talking to from her manager, not just the guys in the ambulance.
on February 20th, 2006 at 10:19 pm
If I did that, I’d be fined around 100 CAD or something along those lines. Misuse of emergency medical services.
I’m in Canada by the way.
on February 27th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
When I was nursing we had a nursing student who was really good. The staff nurse asked when he was starting his training and he said he was going into social work so the nurse said ‘oh, when are you getting your lobotomy.’
on February 27th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Don’t believe this for a minute. Makes a great bit of knocking copy in the canteen, and maybe there are some small elements of truth, but no one who is a trained social worker would be so daft as to call an ambulance for a new pair of shoes! It just wouldn’t happen. I must say, also, that repeating such utter nonsense really undermines a usually excellent blog…
PS - how many social workers does it take to change a light bulb?
‘the Department can’t afford a light bulb at the moment so have formed a working party called “Coping with Darkness”‘
on March 2nd, 2006 at 10:33 am
I’ve just found your blog and was struck by this post about social workers (being led to it by the later story about the heroic social worker).
I would be inclined to have your line manager put a formal complaint to her line manager (I take it the crew got her name?…)
but I would say this has to be the exception.
Mind, my partner is an ASW and the topic of psychiatrists/gp’s doing assessments gets some interesting comments!
on March 12th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
Steve - well, I wasn’t there, but I believed every word of it, and have experienced enough stupidity from all sections of society to believe that it’s perfectly true.
on April 19th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
She said she was a social worker - but did she ever prove it? *grin*