Some good news for Emergency Workers in Scotland.  Here is hoping it comes down South sometime soon.

New legal powers to protect emergency workers from the threat of assault come into force in Scotland today.

The Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 makes it a specific offence to assault, obstruct or hinder someone providing an emergency service or assisting an emergency worker in an emergency situation.

Healthcare unions are now looking to Westminster to see similar powers introduced to cover staff working in the rest of Britain.

Workers covered in Scotland under the act include police, fire and ambulance staff, medical practitioners, midwives, social workers enforcing child protection orders or emergency protection authorisations, mental health officers and prison officers responding to emergency situations.

Police, firefighters, ambulance workers and medical staff in hospitals are covered whenever they are on duty, as well as when they are actually dealing with emergencies.

The maximum penalty will be nine months' imprisonment, a fine of £5,000, or both.

More serious assaults will continue to be prosecuted under existing laws.

The Scottish executive has given itself the option of adding more groups to the list in the future if necessary.

The minister for finance and public service reform, Tom McCabe said: "People who deal with emergencies provide an invaluable service to our society. We believe they should be able to go about their work without fear of attack or intimidation - and that is why we brought forward this legislation."

The Royal College of Nursing had broadly supported the Scottish executive's emergency workers (Scotland) bill, while pressing for a more inclusive approach to the protection of all healthcare workers.

Sheelagh Brewer, senior employment relations adviser of the RCN, said Tony Blair's government now needed to introduce similar legislation to protect healthcare staff working outside Scotland from violence.

"It is a first," Ms Brewer said of the new legislation. "It is one of the things we included in our recent election manifesto to ensure there is an automatic offence for assaulting nurses."

The last government resisted introducing legislation specifically designed to deal with crimes committed against public sector workers.

However, it has made some progress. Last year, the NHS counter fraud and security management service set up an in-house legal protection unit to support nurses and other healthcare staff to take out private prosecutions where the police or Crown Prosecution Service decides not to take a case forward.

This led to the first antisocial behaviour order being issued against a member of the public last summer, to prevent him harassing NHS staff. Norman Hutchins was barred from entering any medical centres after 47 incidents in which he caused alarm to staff in his bid to obtain gowns and surgical masks.

Let’s imagine a hypothetical situation…

Imagine that there is a webcomic about an ambulance station.

Imagine that each strip is ‘humourous’ in and of itself, but that they build into an ongoing work.

Imagine that it might be written by an ambulance person who has a blog.

Now…what should that webcomic be called?

Answers/suggestions in the comments please, the winner may well win a prize.

 

I was called to a 39 year old male, possibly dead. As I entered the house I saw his relatives crying, and sitting on a kitchen chair was my patient. He looked dead, and wasn't breathing.

I felt for a pulse, didn't feel one - so I hooked up the heart monitor and there was no electrical activity at all.

I turned around to his relatives and told them that there was nothing that I could do for him, and that an ambulance crew would turn up shortly to help them out.

It took ten minutes for the crew to turn up, and I didn't recognise them at all, they must have come from outside our area.

Suddenly one of the crew said they had felt a pulse!

He was also breathing. Oxygen was given and he was rushed out to the ambulance - all that was running through my head was how I had 'starved' him of oxygen, and how much trouble I was going to be in.

One of the crew told me to fake my paperwork, and say that I'd given the patient oxygen. But I knew I was going to get into trouble.

I felt sick for the patient, and sick for myself - this is the sort of mistake that can cost you your job.

Then the postman rang my doorbell, and I woke up from the nightmare I was having.

It's funny how this job can play on your mind, the things that I've seen, and dealt with on this job and as an A&E nurse. Yet it seems that the fear of making a mistake with a patient is still the thing that scares me most.

I've dealt with murders, mutilations and miscarriages. I've seen death in the faces of 3 month old children, 14 year old girls and 22 year old men. I've dealt with limbs hanging off, distraught relatives and people vomiting blood until they die.

But the only thing that haunts my dreams is the fear of doing something wrong.

Shouldn't the patient have more of a place in my mind?

Sometimes you are really glad the patient isn't facing you.

I went to an elderly male with 'chest pain', the ambulance crew turned up at pretty much the same time, so I found myself standing behind the patient as they got a history from him.

"Where is the pain?", the ambulance attendant asked

"Here", he replied pointing to the top of his chest.

"What does the pain feel like?"

"Kind of a burning pain".

"Does the pain go anywhere else?"

"Well, it didn't go with me to my friends house..."

Cue me trying (thankfully successfully) to stop from laughing out loud. Instead I managed to restrain myself to just some silent sniggering.

For those that aren't aware, chest pain which is related to the heart often radiates to the jaw or arm.

Bless him, I love this job.

I've just spoken to the crew, and the pain was related to his heart

Home.

Didn’t plunge screaming into the Atlantic.

Luggage found.

Tea (blessed, blessed tea…)

Bath.

More tea.

Sleep.

Work Sunday and Monday Night.

More Sleep.

It is good to travel, but it’s also good to get back.

Many thanks to everyone who I interacted with on this trip – they were all excellent.

Normal service has now returned (although I’m still walking funny from all those bloody hills).

Things that are keeping me sane, waiting for a plane.

1) A Dell pocket PC with CF Wifi card.
2) Some power in the battery of the above device.
3) An unsecured Continental Airlines Wifi network.
4) Bloglines working well with the above setup.
5) The thought that I'm not flying back into a Conservative government, although Labour isn't much better.
6) A CD player that is currently playing my .wma backups of Moby's back catalogue.
7) 40oz of smoothie goodness.
8) Planning on how to get 'Don't Panic' engraved on the front of my aluminum Pocket PC case.
9) And, that in 4 hours I'll be in the air, and heading closer to a nice cup of tea.

Found beer and meat.

Drank beer, ate meat.

Beer is not a cup of tea, but it dies dull the pain.

Found WiFi network.

Hacked WiFi network.

Sent email.

Six hours until I'm in the air - Six hours in an airport terminal. It isn't that well stocked with shops either.

Would like more news on the election. Will hit the BBC news site before pocket PC batteries die.

Now I just hope my luggage hasn't been blown up because no-one collected it.

The next time I post I will be sitting at my mum's house, drinking a proper cup of tea.

Assuming I haven't plunged into the Atlantic...

It is hot...really, really hot. And I'm prepared for Seattle to London. I've made a run for the air-conditioning of the airport.

My flight is leaving at 18:45, that is seven and a half hours away.

I have no teabags.

Send help NOW.

I am indeed a plank, a fool, a twit and a muppet.

Well, not particularly – but due to circumstances both within, and without my control I’ve missed my connection.

So I’m stuck in Houston for a while.

The good news is that I’m in a particularly swanky hotel, swankier than any hotel I’ve ever been in before.

The bad news is that it means I’m going to miss some of my work shifts.  I’ve already phoned my brother, and he will contact work for me tomorrow.

I wonder how this absence will be recorded?

The bad news is that my check-in luggage is currently somewhere over the Atlantic.  This has my clothes, my toiletries and all my power leads.

I have no idea when I’ll be back in England.

But to be fair to Continental Air, they are fotting the bill for the whole affair.  So while I’m upset not to be in England when I planned, at least I’m not homeless and wandering the streets.

Tomorrow, I think I’ll work on my suntan, as the weather here is astounding.

More after I get home.

Wish me luck…

Yesterday I did a lot of walking, as I mentioned earlier– I’m a Londoner and am therefore used to flat surfaces.

Seattle is a bunch of hills, and you find yourself going up and down hills to get into town.  Then there is the walk back.  These aren’t little hills either, at some points you want to walk on all fours, or break out the mountaineering equipment.

My legs now hurt, and I’m walking like I’m an eighty year old man.  But at least I don’t need a walking stick (yet) – and the weather was nice, and I had some good music on my CD player.

The reasoning behind all this walking was to see the Music Experience and Science Fiction Museum, the Music experience is good if you like looking at guitars, or you like Jimi Hendrix (perhaps I should let the museum know where they could get their hands on the actual ambulance Hendrix died in…).  The SF museum was much more up my alley, highlights included a globe video display, and, for a sad ‘Aliens’ fan like me, the Power-loader from the final fight in the film.

Later in the evening I met with the East Side Bloggers (Hi Anita and all you other folks), and then went on to see The Hitchhikers Guide To the Galaxy.  I liked the film, the changes were pretty much all in the flavour of the previous incarnations, and while a few of my favourite jokes were dropped it was still very funny and very much in the right spirit..

Today there was even more walking hobbling around as I went shopping in Pike street market, visited the first ever Starbucks, and visited the Seattle underground.

Gary Turner had, by strange coincidence taken the same picture as Dave Winer of the Pike Street Market – so I felt that repeating the photo would be a nice way to put us in the same place, separated only by time.  You can see the other pictures here.

The Seattle Underground was a guided tour, and as a Londoner it takes a lot to impress me about underground stuff.  I love the mysteries of the subterranean world, so I was really looking forward to this tour.

To be fair the actual underground bit was a bit dull, loads of brick walls, and tiny when compared to the stuff that is hidden under London.

But the tour guide was excellent, and worth the price of admission alone.  Plenty of humour, well presented, and one of the best tours I’ve ever been on.

Then it was another walk up and down a load of bloody hills, I think Shin splints are a giggle and a half, and there I was thinking that my days of ‘sport injuries’ are over.

Tommorrow I get to fly back into England via Houston.  It will take about 18 hours, assuming I make my connecting flight (which I doubt, as I’ll almost certainly be dragged to one side for ‘special treatment’ again).  I like travel, but it’s nice to get home.

Then on Saturday night I get back to cruising the streets of Newham, looking for trouble.

Normal service will be resumed.

Yesterday I braved the intricate public transit system of Seattle, where you pay when you leave the bus and where some buses only run three times a day.  I was aided by a lovely lady driver who noticed that I was clueless and helped me out (even if she did demand cookies for it).

All the people I’ve met so far have been very polite, friendly and eager to help a lost looking Englishman.  This is not the impression that I got of Americans from the TV…

So why did I risk life and limb on getting a bus to the outskirts of Seattle?  (The picture might give you a clue…)

I was meeting up with fellow blogger, and ex-pat Steve Lacy.  He was going to show me the Microsoft campus, and then go for some drinks.

The Microsoft campus was pretty much as I expected it – only much, much larger.  Steve shares my love of Microserfs, and it was a real pleasure to see the place where the first part was set.  Unfortunately the museum was being used for a private function, so I didn’t get to see it, but just being in that hallowed place was geek heaven for me.

In an alternate reality I would have continued my computer education, got a job programming and ended up prowling the corridors of Microsoft getting paid obscene amounts of money for writing super-efficient code.  In this reality my skills at 6502 machine code is the zenith of my computing skills.

Steve then took me to meet his wife, child and father-in-law, and they were all wonderful people.  It’s really nice to hear an English accent when you are abroad, and we had some of the largest pizza I’ve ever seen, and we talked about what America is really like.  We agreed that it is much nicer than you would think watching the TV.

The next time Steve or his family are in England, they should let me know so I can buy them dinner or something.  I’d invite them to my home, but their house is so lovely I’d just be embarrassed.

So Steve, his friend Zman and I then went to a genuine tavern.  It was just like the ones you see in the films.  Everyone there seemed to know Steve, and so there were plenty of people to talk to.  The night went on, with much drinking of pints of Stella, conversation that seemed, for some reason, to revolve around foreign bodies I’ve seen up peoples arses.

I have absolutely no idea how I got back to Jeannie’s place.  There was a taxi involved, but because he couldn’t find the address (and didn’t really speak a form of English that I could understand), I told him to just drop me off.

There then followed an indeterminate period of drunkenly wandering around, staring at the picture that I have on my compact digital camera, trying to make sense of the funny way that Americans lay their streets, and how place their street names.  However the god of drunken fools was smiling on me (as he often does) and I managed to make my way safely back through a strange city.

The amusing thing, is today I had real trouble finding the house, while sober, in daylight and with a map.

Perhaps I should have popped into a bar for a few drinks…