Well if you ever want to have a laugh for most of the day and you have no TV or other forms of media available I would strongly recommend a visit to Derriford hospital's casualty department. The first thing you notice there is the change in layout. It looks like a bank with chairs! You do not see the white line and blue rectangle on the floor because unless you are looking to the ground you would not notice it. You do see empty counters and lots of people sitting around waiting. Then you see staff laughing and tapping away an having a conversation with everyone else other than the person waiting patiently behind the white line! They call it the privacy line! The idea being that nobody else can hear what is going on between you and the receptionist past the white line!!!! WRONG! When you sit down in the waiting area you hear everything anyway!
So you give the receptionist your details and tell her what has happened and she turns that into a one line sentence on a piece of paper and you sit and wait. You wait some more and then you wait some more. Then despite the notice on the tv screen asking people to turn off their mobile phones you even get to hear the multitude of ringtones playing and the occasional "HELLO! I CAN'T TALK RIGHT NOW I AM IN THE HOSPITAL!" being shouted to whoever is on the other end of the line of the various mobiles that have rung while you have waited patiently and your phone is off!
Finally you are called to the triage section where you get to tell the same story to the nurse and then have to sit and wait and wait and then wait some more. It would not be so bad if the seats were comfortable and there were not so many people in the waiting room not only with their mobile phones constantly ringing but now they are eating and drinking, again despite quite big and bright notices not to.
At least there is a posh TV for you to watch countless ads for various health products and medical insurance etc to keep you occupied for the next couple of hours after you have seen the triage nurse and wait for the doctor to come and see you. Oh and a lovely clean fish tank with very colourful fish in it. What could be better than that for a quite afternoon and evening? Well you get to see heavily pregnant women and their partners sit with a young baby in a carry seat and then leave it next to you while both go out to answer the phone and have a smoke! Then if that does not cheer you up there is the local loony family all sitting there in the confined space that is the waiting area, all eating pasties, pies and drinking or maybe I should make that a bit clearer and describe it as slurping some kind of beverage.
After a few hours of waiting in that area and still not seeing a doctor but knowing that quite a few people who arrived after you have not only seen the doctor but either been admitted or released you kind of get a bit narky! BUT, you are soon cheered up with the sound of the local loony family talking complete shite!
"I had a sister once who I was supposed to call me aunty cos nobody knew she was illegitimate from my father, but I let the cat out of the bag when I called her by her name at a party when I was 7 and I was told to not be so rude (stops to slurp whatever had been in the cup for past hour and half!) but she told them straight to mind their own business cos they did not know nuffink and there was family secrets!" (Another slurp) My family is all over the world, Canada, Iceland, Norway, France, and Cornwall and a few places I cannot say. I got lots of family secrets and not allowed to tell anyone! I should have kept that letter but I threw it away the other day. I could make a lot of money with the things I know!"
Now, by this time the injuries I had gone to casualty in the first place for were joined by my teeth marks in my fingers trying to stop myself laughing and by the team the doctor called my name I had tears rolling down my cheeks. Doctor asks..."Is the pain that bad Mr Oliver?"
Triple rollover in the lottery tonight. How nice would that be?
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