Of interest to only those who play World of Warcraft in Europe.

The latest patch has given us PvP RP servers, I’m playing ‘Reynolds’ on the ‘Venture Co.’ server.

Anyone fancy starting a Guild?  Send me an in-game email if you’d like to.

Anyone going to Podcast Con UK on Saturday? I'll be there, and I shall probably be wearing a big hat. I want to be known from now on as "The Blogger in the Hat".

(If Ewan goes around with a kilt, and Ben in a skirt, then I think a hat is perfectly acceptable).

I have also got my copy of 'Podcasting Hacks'.

This means that, along with a redesign of the site, that there may well be some more 'proper' podcasts in the near future.

Then I have a week off work (although not a week off 'working'), where I shall teach you every trick I know concerning ambulance work (which shouldn't take long).

But tomorrow - I sleep.

Blog Assessment of Personality System.

 

‘BAPS’ for short…

 

I was driving aimlessly around, trying to find an interesting job, but actually thinking about the redesign of the Guardian.

 

Many of the blogs that I read regularly have been commenting about the redesign of the Guardian newspaper, and I was pondering what this meant about the blogs that I read, and what it says about my personality.

 

The first time I was in college, I used to supplement my meagre income with Tarot card readings and palm reading (palm reading I would often do for free at parties, it allowed me to retire to a dark corner and stroke the hands of attractive young women).  All of which is utter rubbish, but it was amusing at the time.

 

So I now offer a new service – The BAPS.

 

Send me a list of 10 or 12 blogs or sites that you read regularly (Not Boing Boing, as everyone reads that), leave a tip in the Donation site and I’ll send back my analysis of your reading habits, and what it says about your personality.

 

It will not be the same as everyone else, nor will it be a simple ‘cut n paste’ job.

 

Honest.

 

And this post isn’t just a chance to snaffle some Google juice for the word BAPS, which for the non-Brits is a slang term for a female chest.

A strange day, it wasn’t that hot, but all I seemed to be doing was going to young women who had fainted.  A lot of women who had fainted.

It started off on the 30th floor of a skyscraper in Docklands, which had a lovely view.  People were having meetings around tables in the expensively furnished corridors, and all the office walls were made of glass.

Which made me glad that I didn’t have to undress the woman who had fainted.

Then it was across the road to another woman who had fainted in another (less well furnished) office.

Then a bit of a run North to yet another woman who had fainted.

Then a gentleman who had fainted on the bus.

Then a woman who had fainted in the local shopping centre.

It seemed like people were dropping like flies.

The really unusual thing was that the blood pressure of all the patients was 80/50, which is really rather low.

It also struck me as interesting that the first of my fainters was near the Arms fair, and then got progressively further and further away.  I didn’t think to check the direction of the wind…

Thirteen jobs today, I am, as they say, bloody tired.

The media has reported a fair bit about MRSA in ambulances of late, one of my commenters has asked how the London Ambulance Service deals with patients who are MRSA positive.

(Note: I'm also writing this to avoid losing my job by posting about a family who have called an ambulance more than seven times in the past week for the same illness).

Primarily the problem is that we just don't know who are MRSA positive, MRSA is prevalent in the community, and I would suggest that most nursing homes have plenty of colonised residents. I remember working in hospital, having to swab everyone coming in from a 'high risk' environment, which basically meant anyone from a nursing home, or another hospital.

It takes time to swab and grow a culture (three days if I remember correctly), and each test costs a not inconsiderable amount of money.

If a patient is MRSA positive, then our infection control booklet tells us that we should use our 'personal protective equipment' (our uniforms) plus what are known as 'universal precautions' - essentially latex gloves.

To clean an ambulance after transporting an MRSA positive patient we use 'System 1' and 'System 2 or 3'.

System 1 - Detergent. System

2 - Chlorine spray System

3 - Alcohol.

So anything the patient has come in contact with is wiped with detergent, and then we either spray it with chlorine solution, or wipe down with alcohol wipes.

The other problem that we have is that we are so chronically overworked, that we often only have a little time to clean the ambulances. If you are having a heart attack, then you won't be impressed if all the ambulances on duty are off the road waiting to dry.

When the LAS do something, we often do it right. Our boss realised that the ambulances aren't as clean as they should be, and that road staff didn't have time to 'deep clean' ambulances every shift. The solution was to contract an outside firm who now cleans and stocks our ambulances for us and from what I have seen, they do a pretty good job.

So every night a gang of underpaid workers clean as many ambulances as possible. This 'make-ready' crew are paid a frankly pitiful £6 an hour, working from 1am to 6am they can clean around 16 ambulances a night using industrial cleaning materials. Every month they are quality controlled by random swabbing. So far they have only had good results.

So I personally think that the LAS is doing something positive and effective against the spread of MRSA

MRSA will never be eradicated, unless we force everyone at gunpoint to use alcohol gel after every physical contact (and this includes 'civilians') and enforce daily antibacterial showers for the entire population of, well, the entire world. But we can do our best to prevent the spread of MRSA (and other, nastier diseases).

As an amusing aside to yesterdays post. I only found out about the arms exhibition because of all the police in the area.

I found out about the demonstrations because I spent five minutes with Google.

I found out the LAS plans to cover the event by talking to friends.

There has been no official bulletin, no memos, no announcements. Our regular bulletin has however let us know about our new 'Community Handbook' (more on which later).

Bit of a poor showing I think.

(Also some people on my station are annoyed that they were never asked to cover the event - considering that it is smack bang in the middle of our 'patch').

Still, the police and protesters will be able to see our nice new shiny ambulances sitting around, while those of us actually working on the streets have had to make do with our old ambulances.

I mean, why would the road crews want the newer air-conditioned ambulances with tail lifts?

I believe that one crew were told by management that this situation is happening because 'image is important'.

It's that special time of the year again, when death-dealers descend on Newham to enjoy the 'Defence Systems and Equipment International exhibition'.

It's an arms fair.

In Newham of all places.

I'm always worried that the local gangs are going to storm the fair and loot it of some 'interesting' souvenirs. Then for the next couple of months I find myself dodging cruise missiles and landmines rather than the usual broken bottles, knives and dog turds...

Both the mayor of Newham, and the mayor of London want the exhibition to stop coming here - but it still comes, bringing with it massive disruption for the people of Newham.

So there will be lots of demonstrations (some have already taken place, such as a street party), but as the exhibition starts tomorrow we are expecting things to start warming up a bit. I haven't seen any soap-dodgers protesters yet, but I'm guessing that tomorrow will see the banner wielding population of Newham increase a thousand-fold. At the moment it seems that a lot of their tactics involve blocking various roads that control entry to the exhibition.

So far I have seen a veritable army of police arriving, shields at the ready (4,000 police taken from other duties to cover the event). Obviously this leaves the rest of London a bit short on policing. I've seen convoys of riot police making their way to the area, and this morning there appeared to be random vehicle checks.

On our part, the LAS have manned an extra ambulance or two for the duration of the exhibition. Sitting in the sun watching people shouting seems like an easy way of getting some overtime. We are also doing other things, but it's probably not a good idea to tell the world and his wife about it. I just hope that the exhibition organisers are paying for our services, after all, it's not like they are short of money.

It might be interesting to print out a spotters card of dictators, warlords and despots just to see how many you can catch turning up in unmarked limousines

I must admit I'm torn. I like the police, they are always helpful, they do a job that is remarkably difficult and when I've needed help they've always turned up and been very useful.

But...

I really sympathise with the protesters, and if I wasn't working, then I'd probably be there amongst them waving a banner and trying not to get stood on by a police horse.

So I'll sit on the fence and say that they are both going to be a huge pain in the backside because they are both going to block roads, probably injure each other and will cause traffic jams when I'm planning on going home.

The philosophy of Reynolds - 'balance through the dislike of everyone'.

A charity is calling for the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) to be prosecuted after a damning report from safety inspectors.

I'm off to bed - early start in the morning *gaah*, so no comment. Anyone from the SAS fancy commenting?

FOR SALE:

X hundred words on various health related stories currently in the news (Binge drinking, 24 hour drinking, MRSA in ambulances, etc).

Normal rates apply.

(Why?  Well, I’d love to put ‘professional writer’ on my CV.  Don’t worry, I’ll write about it here as well)

Thanks folks you have successfully bullied my mum into going to the doctor.  She’s going to use Cheryl’s suggestion of blaming it all on me, and I’m currently educating her into not accepting ‘no’ for an answer from the doctor.

Gotta love the power of the internet…

Seriously – thanks.

Normal service is now resumed

Last night was a pretty strange one, in that I wasn’t massively busy – I only had eight jobs, but instead I spent most of my time standing around in patient’s houses waiting for an ambulance.

For various reasons, the manning of the ambulances last night was particularly poor – there was no night ambulances out of my station, and across the sector I heard the rumour that there was only ten ambulances running.

So the pattern for the night was that I would turn up to a patient, and then spend 30–45 minutes waiting for a crew to take the patient to hospital.  This isn’t a problem when dealing with a maternataxi ( patient’s first baby, pains started two hours ago, contraction pains of about 20 seconds every 15 minutes with membranes intact) who when I told them how long they would be waiting for an ambulance decided that driving themselves would be a better plan.

But with someone who is ill, those 50 minutes (I know, I timed it) seem to stretch.

In this case it was an elderly man with lung cancer who was having real difficulty in breathing.  his oxygen levels were 75% (they should be 95% or higher) and he was struggling to get oxygen to his brain.  Unfortunately there was nothing that I could do for him treatment wise apart from give him oxygen, and try to reassure him and his family.

It’s a bit hard to reassure a patient when the only word you understand is ‘bish’, which means ‘pain’, and he is using that word a lot.

Thankfully his family were on hand to translate, and they were incredibly patient and understanding about the long wait to get their father to hospital.  The oxygen that I was giving him seemed to help settle him a bit, but at one point he emptied my oxygen cylinder, so I had to nip back down to the car for a replacement.

So, not a busy night, just a bit of a hard one in places.