I'm going to apologise, for this post is a complete moan. Nothing positive about it in the slightest.

I'm on night-shifts at the moment and they are hitting me particularly hard. Last night I was feeling nauseous, which lasted into the next day. My eyes felt as if they had been taken out and rolled around in hot sand before being returned to their sockets. At one point I had double vision.

I was in an incredibly bad mood, something that turned into depression for the next day. For much of the night my legs were 'jumping', both annoying and painful. It also meant that when I could try and grab a moment's sleep I couldn't manage to do anything other than close my eyes.

So I'm feeling wrecked.

What then was I here for? Surely some sick person needed my aid...

Here are the calls we took, along with their need for an ambulance or A&E treatment.

* A two year old with a bump on their head after falling over. Needed neither ambulance or A&E. Was a 'blue light' response.
* A twelve year old with a cut finger. Needed A&E treatment but he and his mum could have walked 200 yards to the tube station that would drop him off outside A&E. It didn't need an ambulance.
* An emergency transfer from one maternity department to another. we got there before they were ready but the transfer otherwise went well. Needed an ambulance and hospital treatment. Was perhaps rightly a 'blue light' response.
* A young man with a sore throat and temperature for four days, had taken two of the antibiotics that his GP had given him. Needed neither ambulance or hospital treatment. Was a 'blue light' response.
* A teenager with back pain after drinking and smoking pot at a nightclub. Was a 'blue light' response, needed neither ambulance or hospital treatment.
* A woman, new to this country, with a blocked ear which meant she could hear her heartbeat. Another 999 call that apparently warranted a 'blue light' response.

Not a busy night in the grand scheme of things, but it was enough to keep us away from our station.

And I get to do it again and again and again. But first, while the glowing dayball is in the sky, I need some sleep before I start thinking about killing those who annoy me and then myself.

Go on, practice saying it, “He seemed such a quiet man, kept himself to himself...”.

This is why I need a new job.

We have a number of hostels in our area, some are for young people, some are for people living with mental illness, some for alcoholics and others are for people coming out of prison.

For this latest call we were called for someone who was 'suicidal', we pulled up outside the house and realising that it was the same place that my crewmate had her bag stolen while we were inside dealing with a patient.

We walked in (after making sure that the ambulance was securely locked) and spoke to a member of staff. We had a bit of trouble making ourselves understood, but this is not really unusual any more.

The patient, who was in his room was said to be feeling distressed and had apparently tied a noose in a bit of spare string. The staff seemed very proud that he had taken the string away from the patient - so now the patient was safe.

I asked him if he'd removed the patient's shoelaces, belt, power leads or drawstrings for the curtains. He looked a bit sheepish and told us that he had forgotten about those things...

We went up to the patient's room. He didn't want to talk to us, except to tell us that the 'noose' had just been him fiddling with the bit of string out of boredom. We tried to persuade him to come with us to hospital, it covers our back should he then go on to hurt himself, and it means that he might get some specilist help from the mental health team.

But he refused and in my opinion he was full competent to refuse treatment so we left him.

Going back downstairs to the staff, they seemed very disappointed that we weren't taking the patient to hospital. I had to roll out one of my set monologues, the one where I explain that we can't kidnap people. The staff shook their heads and asked us what they could do. It was night, so there wasn't a chance of a GP or of a mental health team so the only advice that I could give was that they speak to their support staff in the morning.

And so we left, hoping that he didn't go on to hang himself with the belt that the staff had left in his room.

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I'm on night-shifts at the moment. After some time being able to keep the same hours as reasonable people it's come as a bit of a shock to the system. So while the weather is lovely I find myself sleeping through it - it's just depressing really. Especially when people annoy me by dancing in the road in front of me while I'm trying to drive on blue lights.

One day...

Wow, loads of people editing the holiday wiki - many thanks for all the ideas although if I were to take them all on it'd take me a year to see it all.

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I've seen my future, well it'll be my future if I'm lucky and don't drop dead in my 50's.

It was a lovely day, one of the first sunny days we'd had all year and our patients were obviously riffing off the change in the weather, everyone was being really nice.

We were sent on a 'green' job, essentially a transport job with no blue lights or sirens. We were to pick up an elderly man from his flat and run him into hospital. No emergency, no stress, no worries.

One of his neighbours in the block held a key to his flat, so we opened the door and announced ourselves. The interior of the flat was grimy. Junk mail and bills spread on every flat surface. Underpants were hanging over the bath, and a few empty cans of beans spilled over the bin onto the floor. Sepia photographs lined the walls, men in army uniforms, women with babies in arm looking stern.

The reason for the flat being in this state was because of the patient's heart failure, it had caused the lower half of his body to swell up with retained water. He couldn't move around the flat, he was pretty much stuck in his chair, watching the horse-racing on a tiny television.

We had a chat with him, he'd lived in the area all his life, seen his family grow up and move away. He'd seen the population of the area change from English people to Afro-Carribean people to Bangladeshi people, he didn't seem upset by this. He'd only moved house once, when they knocked down where he'd been born and put up this block of flats in it's place.

The only person he saw was the woman who held his key, she hadn't been to visit for some time as she couldn't stand the state of the flat.

We talked about different subjects, from football to politics, the odd joke and the odd tale. We drove him to hospital - none of our medical skills were needed but it still felt like we had used our expertise to put him at ease.

He seemed sad to be wheeled into the A&E department. It was as we went to leave him that he turned to us and with moist eyes said, "Thank you for the company, it's a shame you can't stay with me".

It upset me to leave him there, we had probably been the first human beings that he'd spoken to in quite some time. He'd been living out of that chair for some months. We were company to him for that short time and now he was probably going to become another meat parcel passing through the hospital system.

Hopefully the nurses on the ward will have the time to sit and chat with him, maybe they can refer him to the social services and they might try to place him in a residential home. I think that the company he'd have there would do him a lot of good.

After the last post Cookie left a comment asking if I still wanted to leave my job...

We were sent on blue lights and sirens to a young woman who had 'collapsed'. We arrived and found her writhing around on the floor. She wasn't too happy to talk to us, instead she kept pretending to be unconscious.

It transpired that she was having period pain.

My crewmate (who is female) asked her if she had taken any painkillers for it, after some grunting, groaning and flailing around she was told that, no, the patient hadn't taken any painkillers.

"Do you have painkillers?", asked my crewmate.

"Yes", said the patient and named a rather good painkiller.

"Why haven't you taken them then?"

The patient then pretended to be unconscious.

We asked a couple of times, at no point did she answer. Instead she kept 'passing out' in a way that wouldn't win her any Oscars.

So we popped her in the carry-chair (because otherwise she would be throwing herself about) and popped her to the hospital.

She was given two Paracetamol tablets and sat out in the waiting room.

By London Ambulance Service numbers, 8 out of 10 of our jobs are like this, not needing an ambulance or hospital treatment. I think I get more than my fair share. I find myself going to people younger than me, often healthier than me and yet having to carry them downstairs because their 'flu' makes them unable to walk.

I'm glad I don't have 'proper' jobs all the time, I also like it when my patient can walk on and off my ambulance at both ends of the journey. What does happen is that these 'inappropriate' calls* eventually grind you down, the endless parade of people who don't need any of the skills I have except the ability for me to write down what they say and drive them to hospital.

I knew it would be like this before I joined the job.

It's not the main reason why I want to change jobs, not by a long chalk, I'd say it's around reason #17. But the jobs that make me want to stay, the serious jobs where I can make a difference, are few and far between.

*Of course there are, according to people on much higher payscales than me, no 'inappropriate callers', only 'inappropriate responses'. Which is why we spend so much money on dealing with people who don't need hospital treatment but can't be bothered to see their GP or local walk in centre. At times it seems to be our main focus as an ambulance service.

Squeeze

I'm covered in the urine from the five year old child.

Squeeze

We get the call as a child having a fit.

Squeeze

There is a solo responder there, he's giving oxygen to the child while it lies on the floor.

Squeeze

I look at the child's eyes, he's still fitting, his body isn't moving but his eyes are darting around in an unnatural fashion.

Squeeze

His chest isn't moving in the the way it needs to in order to breathe.

Squeeze

I pick him up, covering myself in the urine and race downstairs.

Squeeze

I kick the door release button to the block of flats, my crewmate jokes about me being able to get my leg up that high.

Squeeze

I lay the child on the stretcher in the ambulance. My crewmate hands me the ambu-bag.

Squeeze

Fitting the mask over the child's mouth I start squeezing the bag, I'm now breathing for the child.

Squeeze

My crewmate jumps into the cab of the ambulance, she weaves through the traffic towards the hospital.

Squeeze

I sit calmly, I explain to the child's mother what I am doing.

Squeeze

I keep checking the child. Good pulses and an oxygen saturation level of 100%. It means the child is getting the oxygen it needs.

Squeeze

We reach the hospital. I scoop up the child and jog into the Resuscitation room. The nurses and doctors take over.

Squeeze

Someone else is squeezing the bag now. I stay and watch a while, the child stops fitting.

Squeeze

We head back to the ambulance station, I need a shower and a change of uniform. I have to shower with cold water as it appears the heater is broken.

I sit on the station sofa, I can still feel the ambu-bag in my hand. I sit and look at the TV, my mind is empty.

I should have a new title added after my name. 'Professional waker-upper'.

Two calls in the space of one shift to people who are sleeping in a public place.

One person fell asleep in a magistrate's court, waiting for his friend to be finished in one of the courts. His friend must have been so excited not to receive a custodial sentence that he left his friend behind.

Smelling slightly of alcohol he'd bedded himself down and fell asleep. We were called by one of the security officers, no-one seemed too happy to shake him awake.

One application of slight pain from the nice ambulance man and the patient woke up, thanked me n his own language and walked off home.

The second patient was asleep on a bus, he'd had a bit more to drink and needed a bit more... ahem... stimulation to wake up.

No thanks from this patient, but at least he didn't make good his threat to punch me. And we didn't need to call the police on him either. A good result all round really.

It's strange that some people seem to think that you need an ambulance in order to wake someone up. I've even been called to nursing homes when one of their patients has been asleep at 3am in the morning.

In fact the whole shift was like that, fourteen jobs in twelve hours with only five of them travelling to hospital.

Ho-hum. Easy money I suppose.

This blog has been many things over the years, it's been a place to rant, a place to explain what us ambulance people do, a place to celebrate what we do well, a place to defend the service from inaccurate news reports and a place to criticise some of the planning that occurs.

The benefits of this blog are many and varied, I've met people I never would have otherwise, done things that I'd never have imagined and made some very good friends. Doors have been opened to me.

I enjoy writing this blog. I like having a place where I can write and people listen to me - I know that sounds egotistical but I'm not alone in liking an audience. Sometimes it's hard to motivate myself when I'm coming off a twelve hour shift, but other times I can't sleep because of something I need to write.

Why am I telling you this?

I've been sitting on an application form for the position of Press Officer for the LAS for the past week or two. The reasons for even having this form are many and varied and will be a subject for a future blogpost. I'm not qualified for the post, even though I think I would bring a breath of fresh air into the role. The chances of me even getting an interview are tiny, if not non-existant.

But it was only this morning that I realised that I can't go for the post.

It's all to do with credibility.

Would you trust me, dear blog reader, if you knew I was now part of a PR machine? Would I still be able to rail against some of the inadequacies of the NHS, the Government or the LAS if I were further on the 'inside'? Would such a job role completely neuter this blog?

I think that it would, so the application form (no shift work, less heavy lifting, more money, just as much fun) has gone into the bin.

It's a damn shame, but this blog has come to mean so much to me over the years that doing something like this would make me feel like I've 'sold out'.

It would have been nice to have a kettle always within reach though…

Ambulance Nut works for the Trust mentioned in the last post and has a few important things to say, things not reported by the news story that I linked to.

It's important to see how media reports differ from reality.

(Thanks go to Ambulance Nut for drawing my attention to this).