Translate

Sunday, August 28, 2016

Weekends doing locum work

As the weeks roll by, so does my routine of working outside Blackpool in other NHS trusts. While it is always professionally profitable to work as an on-call doctor with a bleep (which sort of trains me to work with deadlines and take a few decisions rather than just be around), it is also financially rewarding. This is because the NHS suffers from shortage of doctors across all categories and almost everywhere in England. 

This weekend being a Bank Holiday one (the holiday is on Monday, and probably because banks need a day off every 6 months to reconcile their accounts), I ended up working three instead of two nights. While my Friday night was at Tameside General Hospital, located east of Manchester near Ashton-under-Lyne and part of Greater Manchester, I travelled to Birmingham to work at the Birmingham Children's Hospital for the next two nights. I am writing this from within the BCH as I await patients in the Emergency Department of the hospital where I am posted. 

The ED is quite a busy place staffed with doctors dedicated to the ED. In addition, they have a clinical decision unit or the CDU where the Paediatric SHO (that's me) and Registrar work to see patients referred by the ED staff to us. Last night was actually very busy, and my registrar and I were busy seeing one patient after another as the night melted into a new morning. Today, it has been a gentler start, with 2 infants born within a day of each other at the same hospital but unknown to each other coming with different but insignificant complaints. Both of them have now left the hospital as their problems were not suggestive of any major form of trouble. 

The work area is divided into the actual ED with 12 cubicles, 5-6 observation bays and a treatment area, the CDU with 3 beds, a General Observations Bay where patients can be kept for up to six hours, and a Paediatric Admissions Unit (the PAU) where children who need longer hospitalisations can be shifted. There is a quiet, efficient hustle-bustle as children come in, are seen by the nurses, then the doctors and then sorted out to either go home, be transferred to the observations bay, or admitted into the PAU. Every one working here takes a break at around half past two or three a.m. when the work is lightest, but this is not always possible, so things can get rough and people can miss their break. There is a small room with a wall-mounted TV, a refrigerator, a toaster, a tea-pot and a microwave oven where people can go to relax. It all adds up to a fairly interesting shift of duty indeed. 

While I worked with a ST 5 (a middle-grade middle level registrar) yesterday, a Greek man by the name Vas, today, I am working with a Bangalorean ST 8 registrar Ratna. Working with both of them (so far) has been enjoyable. 

I have been granted accommodation within the hospital. I had some excitement yesterday when I first came in. My access card that opens doors within the hospital (which I was given by the hospital security within an envelope marked with my name) was not working; then, the room I was allocated was really the worst of the rooms within the multi-room flat that I was allocated to stay in; and, finally, I could not find my way to reach the reporting area. One by one, each of these problems got sorted out. Hence, today, it has been smooth work with no hassles. 

Earlier in the evening, I woke up from my post-on-call slumber around half past four in the evening, and decided to walk around the area. I noted a few interesting things. One of them was a no-vehicle, pedestrians only zone built BELOW the level of the roads where there was a large open space, trees, lawns and various pathways that led to the different roads around the area. There was a large group of local youth that sat under a big tree. I was really impressed with this level of infrastructure. 

I then stepped into a Jamaican restaurant (Aunt Sally's Caribbean Food) and had my first ever Caribbean meal. It was delicious and I was forced to buy some more meals to carry back to Blackpool for later consumption.

Will post photos later ... thanks for reading this. Do post your comments, as I really appreciate it!

No comments:

Post a Comment