At the end of the day,I am a simple soul.
Basically I am an optimist....although I have in fact seldom had anything good *actually* happen to me...I really just go to work and try to do my job in a conscientious and ethical manner.
I will care for anyone...its my job...and its that simple.
All I really expect is that you might say "hello" when you sit down in my room.
However there are many, many things that irritate me on a daily basis...taxi drivers;people who don't wipe their sweat off of gym equipment;"fresh" orange juice that isn't;teenagers;the Guardian newspaper;the entire Labour Party;stale crisps;Belgium...and I have a sinking feeling that I am turning into a bitter old man...despite only being 16 years old...well...16 in my head!
So in the middle of a very busy day...short of staff with a 3 hour wait for the patients...and just before lunch...I got to see a lovely 3 year old boy with a viral illness.
Or so I guessed.
When I went out to the waiting room to call the patient,the mother just held the child out to me and said...
...here...here...sick child...sick child...!
Because despite his mother having lived in England for 18 years,she was unable to speak enough English to tell me anything about her child beyond saying ...
He sick...he sick....husband come...husband come...
Sometimes I feel like a vet!
And of course,the husband didn't come to the Unit until she phoned him to say she was ready to go home.
I duly hauled out the Language Line Interpreter card and she pointed to 'Farsi" as her language...we pay about £3 a minute to use the service...
...and so I phoned and spoke to an interpreter...
So here's the thing...I understand that you have a right to your own religion and culture but please...purleeeeze... take some time in 18 freaking years to learn the language of the country in which you live...so that we can look after your child.
Irritated beyond belief I went to lunch...I am doing the 2-bowls-of-Special K a day diet...!!
We just got busier and busier and at about 20h00 I saw another child who had been waiting 3 hours to be seen.
He was from one of the posher areas of town;attended a privileged private school;and they looked like they thought they were slumming it...and were visibly disappointed that I was a nurse and not a doctor.
And asked to see a doctor...
...and were even more sniffy when I told them that there are no doctors working in our Unit..
Anyway...I apologised for the wait and and was immediately met with a torrent of abuse from the mother....demanding to know why they had waited so long to be seen.
I explained that whilst we are a Minor Injuries Unit,that people still come in to the Unit having heart attacks and other serious illness....and that those patients have to be stabilised and then transferred...and that that all takes time...
And that anyway....her child had injured himself the day before...and why had she waited a day before bringing him in for treatment?
We then got to the 'previous medical history' part of the examination...and she proudly...smugly....supercillsioulsy ... told me that her son had not received any immunizations or vaccinations...and that she didn't want him to have a tetanus booster.
*sigh*
More than anything else,this is the single thing that irritates me.
In our fair town at the moment we have had a case of diphtheria...and an outbreak of measles.
I don't know what angers me more ....smug-religion or smug-stupidity.
I really should have stayed in the Foreign Legion.
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