9 - The big move!

"..who are the individuals with the handle on the most gossip?"

In my time in the Trauma ward, I had conversed with many nurses,surgeons and teams of doctors but in a hospital who are the individuals with the handle on the most gossip? The healthcare assistants, the clerks and, most of all, the cleaners!

The move to the new hospital was rapidly approaching. It had been designed and built, supposedly, with healthcare of patients in mind. Keep that statement in the forefront of your mind while reading this part.

It turns out that the agreement to move into the 'new' hospital had been advanced because the construction company the trust was leasing the hospital from wanted to begin the monthly mortgage payments from a specified date and the trust was not going to pay for an empty hospital. The decision was made to move in! The date was set, the plans were made, all that was left was to transport the patients and the countdown had begun.

"The lifts originally installed were not big enough.."

While gathering my 'intelligence' of gossip from various sources, I was told:
1 - The A&E department had become flooded during completion due to faulty pipework
2 - The lifts originally installed were not big enough to accommodate hospital beds and needed to be completely ripped out
3 - Considering that a hospital generally can deal with patients of all disabilities, me now being one of them, the corridor doors did not operate on any sort of electrical access and, consequently, as the doors were so big and heavy, wheelchair users had to wait for someone more able to open the doors for them to move about the hospital.
4 - The wards had been turned from Nightingale wards to many rooms based around a network of 'ward corridors' increasing the walking time between rooms. This resulted in the placement of different, numerous ward stations, cupboards and sluice rooms at far ends of the stretches of corridors.

The big move day arrived! What was left of the dressings, machines and equipment were bundled up and set aside for transport. My bed, being number 19 by the door, was the first to be taken over. My medical drip bags were secured, my notes were placed at my feet and an assigned nurse tagged along with the porters as I was taken down to the the main hall.

My name having been checked off the list, I was taken outside to my own ambulance and bounced along the potholed main road to the new hospital. Being whisked to the 4th floor, and having a side room to myself (number 6), I was 'installed'. Owing to the hasty occupation, many rooms had not been finished, mine for example had no TV to begin with, and believe me, when you're in my position being unable to adequately hold a book and turn pages, a TV is a godsend! I mean, I'm not a fan of TV normally, of the opinion that programme schedulers can't get five channels watchable, let alone 30 channels for digital!

".. (at) £9 for 5 days, it is easy to clock up a large debt."

Although, TV in some hospitals, like this one, can also be a real financial millstone as well as a necessity to alleviate the repetitive boredom. To ellaborate, this hospital had invested in individual bedside televisions on the moveable arm (similar to the above) that could access all of the digital channels and have Internet as well. While this was a good investment, in order to watch the TV patients had to pay extortionate amounts of money to 'buy' time to watch it. Small cards were dispensed from automated machines, like mobile phone top up cards, and a relative (if you were bed bound) could go and purchase anything from 24 hours to 5 days worth. The problem was, when you have to go into a hospital environment, especially in an emergency, the last thing you reach for is your wallet! And if your income had dropped to 'Sick Pay' levels as mine had, purchasing TV Time was a difficult necessity. At £2 for 24 hours and £9 for 5 days, it is easy to clock up a large debt.

My room was quaint, however, with an ensuite bathroom for one (not that I could use it) and the normal hospital routine resumed ... with the exception that now it would take longer to get a nurse to attend and longer to get dressings.

"The overall 'fitness' of the hospital was called into question many times"

The overall 'fitness' of the hospital was called into question many times. My conversations with nurses revealed a general dislike to the new arrangement and the safety of staff was uppermost in their minds, having heard a story that a doctor had broken his arm in one of the lifts that dropped four floors and he ended up in the very A&E department of the hospital he worked for.

Whilst in this new room that was to be my home for many months, my injuries took a turn for the worst.