Nee Naw

This week is Relief Week, which means I get to work on other desks. Yesterday, I found myself on the South West desk. The South West is where Steve works, and as I rang his station, I wondered if he was working today.

On my tea break, I checked my phone, and there was a message from Steve. “Listening to you on channel 4! I’m on the FRU, SW500.” I promised I’d keep an eye open for any interesting calls for him!

Back in the room, there was a buzz on my radio.

“Red base, SW500 on channel 4?” said a familiar voice.

“Go ahead, SW500, over.”

“I’ve just been sent on cad 590, an amber* to a woman who has had… vaginal pain… for two weeks. I don’t suppose I could be cancelled?”

I checked that we had a vehicle on the call and asked the FRU desk to cancel Steve. Unfortunately, our vehicle got diverted to a higher priority call, but on close inspection of the diagnosis they decided to cancel him anyway. FRU desk were slightly confused as to why their FRU wanted to speak to me and not them. I didn’t see fit to explain!

Several hours later, my stint on the South West was over and I went downstairs to take some calls. I texted Steve to say I was no longer on his sector, and got the reply “Good luck with the call taking. Try and get me something interesting, like a suspended.” I assured him that if I got any calls in his area, I’d personally get the callers to kill the patients to give his some decent jobs, so he wouldn’t have to go on any Pain In Vaginas.

I should know better than to say things like this, of course.

Fast forward four hours, and a call comes in in South West London. A man is in a state of mild panic. As the operator connects the call, he’s saying something about “not breathing”, so I know straight away what it’s going to be. As I speak to him, he explains that his mother, who is a cancer patient, has just this second stopped breathing. His wife is doing CPR, but she’s not sure she’s doing it right - can I help them whilst the ambulance is coming?

Life is so much easier when people actually want your help and don’t just scream “send the ambulance!” at you. The first step was to get the patient on the floor so there is a good firm surface for CPR.

“I can’t, she’s got cancer, she’s very frail, it’ll hurt her… I mean -” started the son, clearly realising the ridiculousness of what he was saying mid sentence. “Okay, I’ll have a go.”

Unfortunately after about thirty seconds of trying, it became clear that even between the two of them, they weren’t going to budge her. From what he’d already said, my gut feeling was that this was not going to be a successful resus, and that the emphasis should shift from “saving a life” to “making the family feel they did everything they could whilst maintaining as much of the patient’s dignity as possible”. So I pressed on with the rest of the CPR instructions, with the son and his wife taking turns, and me issuing encouragement into the room via the phone’s loudspeaker.

All was going smoothly, which gave me time to check on the progress of the ambulance. You’ve probably guessed this by now. On the log, I saw a very familiar callsign had been dispatched. Steve! It wasn’t his immediate area, which made it even more of a coincidence. I began to feel very guilty about our earlier conversation, as if I had wished this to happen! Like I had killed the patient myself. Suffice to say that is the last time I ever promise anyone a suspended, even in jest!

My thoughts were interrupted by a second female entering the room and starting to scream. The son then promptly broke down in tears, and the wife, who had been the rock of the situation up till now even started to go a bit wobbly.

Then I heard the sirens approach, and someone else entered the room. I heard that familiar voice again, just as the phone line went dead.

Usually, call takers hear very little of what happened after the crew arrive. We can see if the patient is taken to hospital, and, if there is a blue call, their observations and possibly a diagnosis, but that’s it. I knew I’d get to hear more about this one, though, and so will you - when Steve takes up the story later in his blog. He’s out saving lives at the moment, but I’ll add a link once he has written it…

Edit Click here for Part 2, Steve’s post.

* Don’t ask me why a woman who has had vaginal pain for two weeks comes up as an amber. The words “AMPDS” and “useless” spring to mind.

Thanks to Reynolds for this link. Well, no thanks really, because it has made me angry and flabbergasted very early in the morning.

The article is about a 77-year-old man who had a fall in a pub. He fractured his skull and sadly died. His family are thinking of suing the ambulance service, because, wait for it, they arrived TOO QUICKLY and therefore did not see all the information given in the 999 call. Have you ever heard anything like it? Perhaps they should have parked on the opposite side of the road and refused to leave the cab until the call was complete? No doubt then someone would be suing because the ambulance took too long to arrive!

A few points:
- The ambulance took four minutes to arrive. On average, 999 calls take 2-3 minutes. So perhaps someone should sue those helpful bystanders for taking too long on the phone! Or maybe the call taker was talking too slowly. Sue him too!
- Even if they didn’t see the full details of the call before they arrived, they would have been available to them when they got back in the cab.
- And why didn’t the bystanders who gave all this helpful information to the call taker stick around to give it to the ambulance crew too?
- The news report states the patient refused to let the ambulance crew touch him or get in the ambulance. Ambulance crews can’t treat anyone who refuses treatment (unless they are under a section of the Mental Health Act). It is against the law, and guess what, can get them sued! The patient has the last say as to whether they are taken to hospital. Maybe the crew would have pushed the issue a bit more if they’d known the patient had been unconscious, but it still would have been up to him. (On occasions, people in life threatening conditions have refused hospital and while the crew do not take leaving them lightly, once they are convinced they are of sound mind and understand what they are doing, they have no option but to leave them.)
- Crews are neither doctors nor psychics. Their job is not to diagnose but to monitor the vital signs and symptoms and keep the patient alive until they reach hospital. If the patient refuses treatment, they can’t do any of that.
- This crew didn’t “just leave the patient to die”. They left him with the police, who would monitor the patient and send for the FME (police doctor) if they had any concerns. It sounds to me like this is exactly what happened.
- The report mentions that one member of the crew was scared of being assaulted, seeming to imply this is a bad thing, and that crews should put the patient’s health above their own safety. Nonsense. Crews are people too and they have every right to put themselves first. Why should they get hurt just doing their job? It’s not just self-preservation either. If a crew is assaulted, they’ll be off the road for the rest of the night, and think how many people will suffer because of that. If they are seriously injured in the assault, they could be off for months. Why risk it?

This has turned into a bit of a rant and I hope it does not come across as unsympathetic to the family who of course are in shock at the loss of their relative and probably not thinking straight and looking for someone to blame. On the other hand, I can’t help feeling sad and angry when someone turns on the very people who were trying to help in this way. Sometimes, people die and it is a tragic accident but it is not anyone’s fault. All that needs to be said to the ambulance crew is “thank you, I know you did all you could.”

Also, grammar pedant’s note… did anyone notice that this report has my worst ever pet hate in it? It’s not LAYING ON THE GROUND, it’s LYING!!! What was he laying? An egg? Urgh!