So it seems that many of you are either very clever, or have been reading this blog for a long time.

Yesterday was incredibly busy, there were a lot of ambulances off the road because there was not enough staff to man them, and there were only two RRUs in the area. One of which was me, and so I was being run from one side of my patch to the other all day. I don't mind driving miles, as it's always entertaining to race through the streets on blue lights.

My last job was a maternataxi in one of the 'less exclusive' parts of town, my patch touches on both the highest and lowest income areas in London. This place was within sight of where multi-billion pound deals are made.

It was a small flat, and the family were about to prepare to break the Ramadan fast. The young patient was having contraction pains, and her waters had just broken. She was being looked after by her neighbour, and on immediate inspection there was nothing much to worry about.

'Hmmm', I thought, 'She's pretty close to giving birth though'.

Contractions were about two minutes apart, and were lasting one minute each. Still, at least she didn't have the urge to push.

Time passed...

No ambulance arrived.

More time passed...

Still no ambulance.

I phoned up my Control.

'Hi there, EC50 here on a labour. If there is a truck on the way, they might want to bring the carry chair with them', I was up in the clouds in a block of flats, so I didn't want to have them running down to get the chair when the mother was getting close to that 'I can't walk' moment.

The patient groaned and said something in her own language.

'She wants to push', translated the neighbour, but looking at the patient I didn't need that translation.

'I think we'd be better off in the bedroom...', I suggested.

But the patient didn't want to struggle up the stairs.

Now my job changed from reassuring the patient, to reassuring the patient that, should it come to it, having a baby at home wasn't going to be a problem, especially because the kitchen was fairly clean*. I mean, a kitchen is much easier than the back of a car, at night, with no streetlights.

I really wanted to examine the patient to see how near the birth was - but I'm always a bit respectful that Muslim women don't particularly want me poking around in their nether regions. If the ambulance didn't arrive soon though, I'd have no choice.

The ambulance arrived.

Luckily one of the crew was female, and so I told them what was happening, and that the female crewmember might want to have a little look at what was happening before we tried moving her out of the labyrinth of a tower block we were in.

Us men left the room. Then we heard her say that the baby was 'crowning'. Birth was going to be a few minutes away.

I opened the maternity pack that I always bring with me on calls like this, and we laid the patient down on the kitchen floor. I phoned for a midwife, while the ambulance crew delivered the baby.

They made much less of a mess than I normally do.

A perfectly happy, healthy baby girl, a happy mother, a happy neighbour and an even happier aunt.

From waters breaking to delivery in under 45 minutes. Not too shabby.

The midwife was delivered by another ambulance (traveling on a flat tyre for the last part of the journey) and I left them to check out both the baby and mother, and to deal with the delivery of the placenta. I was no longer needed.


* Cleaner than my kitchen anyway.

I was in tears last night watching the news about the earthquake victims, it's hard to imagine over 20,000 people dead and at least 46,000 people injured. I know that I would rather be out there helping people who really need help, rather than running around after people who have had a cold for the last three days...

Newham has a large Pakistani/Indian population, and I would suspect that nearly every family will have been touched by this disaster. The fasting of Ramadan (which is going on right now) is supposed to remind Muslims of those worse off than themselves - something I don't think they'll have much trouble with right now.

You can donate money to the Red Cross appeal, I have, have you?

So Jeannie and I have been roaming around London, and to the left you can see a picture of us outside the Tower of London.  It was the first time that I’d ever been on a London tour bus, and to be honest the experience wasn’t too bad.  I did of course annoy Jeannie by pointing out things that the recorded tour audio missed, and gave her little tit bits of information on various places and people.

There was a reasonable amount of drinking in London pubs.  As a ‘lightweight’ I stuck to the rather weak, but also tasty, John Smiths.  We met up with Mozrat (from IRC) and had a nice little meal in Paddington.

Another first was the little river cruise that we took.  I’ve lived in London all my life, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually been on the river Thames.  So a short trip up to Embankment was a pleasant change to the normal tube travel.

We had a little wander up to Leicester square, where we stumbled across the Premiere for ‘Serenity’. I think that I’ve mentioned before how much I love the TV series Firefly that has spawned this film.  So we stood around for a bit until some of the stars, and the writer turned up, and I snapped some pictures.

They all spent a great deal of time signing autographs and meeting the fans.  Joss Whedon is in an unusual position, there are few writers/directors who get their name so prominently on the movie poster.  The poster reads ‘A Joss Whedon Film’, which I think is a little unusual.

It also mentions that he was the creator of Buffy and Angel.

I can’t think of any other movie that mentions TV programmes on it’s poster.

Talking of the posters – the railings that we were standing behind had hardboard posters for the movie.  We liked them.  So did the couple who were standing next to us…

So after everyone had gone in, and after getting permission from the security people, I pulled out my penknife and got Jeannie, and the other couple some swag.

I don’t know how she is going to get it home though, as it is quite incapable of being folded…

 I like to think that Nathon Fillon and I look similar, after all we both play characters called Reynolds…

Jeannie has landed safely and is, I suspect, planning to invade the UK, given the amount and weight of her luggage.

Why is it that men can travel in comfort with a shoulder bag, while women need two suitcases, a backpack and a huge carry bag?

From Warren Ellis – ‘ So how dead does this place get on a Sunday night?’

Well today (looks at his watch) yesterday was pretty much dead person day.

Two corpses, two nearly dead, and one about to die.

All in one shift.

I think my favourite was an elderly gentleman in a nursing home, who had real trouble with his breathing.  I asked the nurses there to sit him forward, so I could listen to his chest with my stethescope, and they replied, “How?”, and, “I don’t understand”.

I think I got a bit ‘shouty’ with them after that.

I’ll gloss over the way they opened the door for me, but then let me find the patient all on my own…

Posting will possibly be a bit light over the next few days, as Jeannie is coming over to stay from Seattle, so most of my time will be spent showing her around London.  I’m looking forward to it.

Then there will be drinks, feel free to turn up and say hello to a genuine American.

October the 1st, 2004.

We are now one year on from the implementation of Agenda for Change (AfC), and us EMTs still don't know what our new pay and conditions are going to be. The planning for AfC was started a year before this. So AfC has been with us for two years.

I think one of my commenters put it best when someone asked about AfC.

The pay rise announcement for paramedics, whilst being a significant rise, is not the great deal that it's been made out to be, with very little option for improving your pay based on skills and knowledge.

The rise for Technicians which is what you would be to start with if you joined the ambulance service, is still to be decided. The offer from management has been thrown out by the unions as it was utter rubbish, and it's now been referred to a national committee. If the rumours are true, and it seems that's the way it will be, techs will be placed in Band 4 of Agenda for Change, so while our gross annual salary will rise to just over £25k, our basic salary will effectively drop from £21,900 to around £19k, with the rest being made up from enhancements - unsocial hours payments, London allowance etc. We'll get time and a half for overtime, but that'll be based on the £19k basic. Plus band 4 doesn't recognise us doing ECGs, giving drugs and supervising trainees.

To put it into perspective - there are hospital cleaners that are going to be placed in band 4. Enough said?

Sorry to rant on but this A4C stuff, but it really annoys the Hell out of me!


For me, it's not about the money - it's about recognising us for the jobs we do and the skills that we have. We essentially work on our own, have to solve time-critical problems and give drugs that are normally only prescribed by doctors. We are at risk of being beaten up, we have to calm situations down, and maybe even be the first on scene at terrorist bombings.

Yet it seems that we are not recognised for this, instead our basic pay will drop, and the only way that we will make up the shortfall will be the new idea (for the ambulance service at least) that working rotating shifts should earn you a bit more money. The drop in basic pay will imply that our day to day work is not worthy of financial recognition.

Of course, this is all supposition, as no-one seems to know anything.

Morale at the moment is, to put it bluntly, crap, and it wouldn't surprise me if there were some form of 'action' in the near future. (Nothing that would affect patient care though).

It isn't helped by the misinformation in the media that is claiming that we will be earning a 30% pay rise, as this is purely for our (top trained) Emergency Care Paramedics, who are taking on the role of out-of-hours GPs. ECPs are in band 7, EMTs are likely to be put in band 4. So I won't be seeing a 30% increase...

At least we haven't got a job description that tells us to expect to be beaten up by patients and their relatives.