I have been here for six months and have managed to avoid any transfers which I hate at the best of times. However, in my last week my luck ran out. We had a trauma patient at CURE who needed intensive care and therefore needed moved to Queens, the government hospital which is just two minutes up the road, or maybe 6 minutes if you’re dragging a mattress-with-patient combo behind you.
I was informed that there was an ambulance available for which I was duly thankful until I decided to take a look at it ahead of time. Rather disappointingly, the only thing that marks it out as an ambulance is the red cherry on top. Well, I may be being harsh. It also says ‘Ambulance’ in big letters along the side. The back of the land rover had the seats taken out to make room for a mattress which you slide off the trolley into the back and then slam the door to make sure the patient doesn’t slide out on the way. Oh, I forgot. There isn’t actually enough space for a mattress, so you have to sit the patient up. And bend their legs. Thankfully, my patient had bilateral femoral fractures so I had an extra place to bend them. THEN you slam the door. Then you press the magic button that turns the siren on and off you go. But not before you’ve wrapped your arm round the (free standing) oxygen cylinder so that it doesn’t tip over onto the patient’s head. Lesson learnt.
Another tip about transfers is to make sure that the doors at the receiving hospital open and that the person with the key has not gone home. We reversed up to the doors outside ITU and could open one side but someone had padlocked the bolt on the other door. The helpful theatre assistant tried to ram the trolley through the door but it was a lesson in spatial awareness and he retreated and came back with a narrower trolley. We then dragged my patient onto their trolley, ripping the mattress in the process due to an inexplicable ridge of metal on the floor of the ambulance. We docked in ITU and sorted her out. One of the ITU nurses had been at my brother’s wedding and it was nice to have a quick chat with her. The consultant anaesthetist from CURE had shown up having driven in his own car, and between us we had the task of carting all the equipment back to CURE as the ambulance had left already (A scenario familiar to UK anaesthetists also).
So we picked up all the stuff and made to leave, Roy staggering behind me under the weight of the large oxygen cylinder; when the ITU nurse asked if I wanted to see the pictures of my brother’s wedding that she had on her phone. I had a nice flick through them and sometime during this heard a loud ‘thunk’ behind me which was Roy dropping the oxygen cylinder on his foot in disbelief that I had stopped to admire someone’s photos while he was carrying an obelisk, muttering something about women and weddings. I think he will be thankful to see me go.The patient survived the ordeal and so did Roy’s toes, and I have learnt many lessons in how to be a bit more prepared in the future.
