Just a quick post so let people know that there is going to be a Blog Meetup in London on the 21st of December (next Thursday). Location and time are yet to be determined, but I;m guessing that it will be a bar in London in the evening. It's being organised by my publishers, so if you have a book idea I'm sure you'll be able to collar them to try and sell it. Anyone who blogs is more than welcome to turn up.

More details as and when I get them.

I'm particularly interested in dragging along people who know how to play 'Werewolf'...

For the first time *ever*, ambulance crews are going to have rest breaks.

For too long we have been working 12 hours a day without a break.  Sure, we may be able to sneak a cup of tea at hospital, but if you take longer than half an hour to unload patient, handover to nurse, clean and restock the ambulance and finish your paperwork so that the patient can’t sue you, then we often get asked if we could ‘green up’ for another call.  Trust me when I say that it can easily take longer than half an hour to do all the above.

We rarely get to see our station, too many people call us and we simply don’t have enough ambulances to deal with all the drunks, cut fingers and coughs and colds that we get sent to.

European legislation means that we should all get a short ‘rest break’.  If you work for 12 hours, is it really too much to ask for a half hour break at some point?

Apparently it is too much to ask for ‘The Sun’.

Some journalist, who can no doubt have plenty of cups of tea during her day, decides to attack our service for (a) following the law, and (b) treating it’s staff like human beings who need feeding and watering.

It can be hard work on an ambulance, while a lot of our work is fairly simple, there are days when, not only are you run ragged, but you also have a string of tricky jobs.  Why shouldn’t we be like everyone else and get a break.  The police have meal-breaks, nurses have meal-breaks, doctors have meal-breaks and the fire service have meal-breaks (if I were being uncharitable I say that the fire service have occasional breaks in their meals for work).

So why should we be any different?

We make enough sacrifices for this job – shift work knocks years off your life, wrecks your health and social life.  We go into dangerous situations on a daily basis, get beaten up and sit in enclosed spaces with infectious patients.  We also don’t get paid enough considering how the government keeps expecting us to hold together the tatters of the NHS.  Until we got breaks we would also be eating unhealthily, wolfing down fast food between jobs, so physical fitness is a concern for us – gym memberships are a waste of money when you work half the time they are open.

So ‘The Sun’, rag that it is, wants us to work like robots.  Instead they should ask why, despite meeting targets,despite an annual increase in calls, despite being told we should cover the shortfall in GPs and A&Es the government has taken money away from us.  Ask why we can’t have more ambulances?  Ask why we have to go to people who have stubbed their toe, got a wart on their foot or have ‘man-flu’?  Ask why, after dark, it’s us and the A&E departments against the world as all the psychiatric teams, social workers and care home staff vanish along with the sun.

Maybe that would be proper journalism.

I’m already hearing about crews getting abused due to this article, one person reports being shouted at while having a sandwich, while another received abuse from a patient with a cut finger (needing only a plaster) – all because they think we should be running around ‘saving lives’.  It only needs someone to abuse me on this subject and they would get a lecture on how you shouldn't believe everything that you read in your chip wrapper.

In reality meal-breaks won’t make much difference in responding to emergency calls, it just means that the ‘stubbed toe brigade’ will have to wait half an hour for their free taxi to hospital, while true emergency calls will be covered as well as they are at present.  Being able to have a protected break may also mean crews will  be refreshed, meaning that they will ‘green up’ that bit faster, improving our response to those genuine calls.

I’ve been using Twitter a fair bit these days, it’s an interesting web-app that may well have…

Well, why tell you here when I have my shiny new blog to fill.

However, this belies the beauty of it. Once you have added a few friends (and more and more people are signing up as this meme spreads), then the inflow of short messages become like a Zen cloud of how people are feeling.

Here is the deal – on this blog I shall continue to write about ambulance work and the like.  I’ll keep up the normal posting frequency (when I have inspiration).  ‘Mental Kipple’ will be for anything that isn’t connected to ambulance work.  It’s somewhere for me to fool around, write about the things that interest me outside of the ambulance world and to let me practice different forms of writing.

It will let me keep this site ‘pure’, so that folks can’t moan when I post about things unrelated to ambulance work.

Lets see if I get bored after three months.

Everyone was ignoring the patient.

We'd picked her up after an episode of a recurrent illness, she was going to be fine but I felt sorry for her.  Hardly anyone was talking to her, they were all distracted by her partner.  I worried about how safe her partner would be in the back of our ambulance, it turned out that it wouldn’t be a problem.

When we got to the hospital the staff there were more concerned with the patient’s partner although she was a big hit with the department and she did cause a few organisational problems.  A few other patients looked a little worried by her presence.

It made me feel bad, I felt that the patient was being ignored a little with everyone paying full attention to her partner.  So I made sure that I talked to her, I’m guessing that although she was used to such reactions she would still feel upstaged.

“I bet you get ignored a lot when you are with her”, I asked our patient.

“Yes, but you have to get used to it”, she replied.

But why was all this attention being lavished on our patient’s partner?

Because our patient was blind and her partner was a guide dog.

---

Sure, it’s an unusual thing to have to deal with a guide dog in an A&E department (although where I worked in A&E we had a ‘regular’), but it still surprised me that playing with the dog or talking about it seemed to be more important than putting the patient’s mind at ease.  Maybe it’s because I’ve got a mate who is registered blind, but it just seems rude to put all your attention on their dog, no matter how cute they are.

 

Blogging is a bit slow at the moment partly because I have nearly run out of interesting ambulance stories to write about.  I’m working on something (when I can motivate myself out of my current ‘funk’), that may mean more posting.  I believe that the best way to get out of a bad spell is to throw yourself into work…

Grief - a Saturday night alone on the FRU makes for a not very happy Tom.

So I'm just snuggling down for a little kip on station, it's about 3am in the morning and all seems quiet, the temperature outside is somewhere around freezing so laying on the sofa wrapped in my fleece is looking like a really good idea.

Obviously the activation phone decides to ring and I soon find myself speeding far out of my area to a 'life status questionable'.

His life status wasn't questionable, his sobriety was. One of our friends from Europe, he had been drinking and decided to have a sleep in the doorway of a shop. Granted if I hadn't gone and woken him up he may had frozen to death, as he was a nice enough bloke I couldn't be too angry. It also put me very close to 'The Log Cabin' which meant I could go and have a hot, filling 'Gob Job' before trying to catch forty winks.

Of course, halfway through the cooking of this gastronomic delight I get another job. I could tell what sort of job it was going to be - someone had dialled '999', said 'Hello', then hung up. For some reason (maybe one to ask Nee Naw), this was coded as another 'Life status questionable'.

"I'll be back in a minute", I said to the domestic goddess cooking my burger.

I dutifully screamed through the streets of Whipps Cross to find, to my utter surprise, an empty phone box.

"Hello Control", I called up on my radio, "I have a lack of any dead or dying people here, please cancel the ambulance, I'm calling it as a hoax".

It was then a quick drive back to collect and eat my burger.

The drive would have been quicker had some drunk not tried to jump into the car so I could, "just take me up the road". When I refused I was sworn at, but that didn't bother me much as I had a nice hot burger waiting for me.

The jobs I did that night were...

2 hoaxes
1 painful knee
1 hot child
1 drunk ...
and an alcoholic with liver failure.

This is not good when you need inspiration.

I'm busy over the next couple of days (a combination of Christmas parties, night shifts and *thankfully* a chance to see Laura).

As you know I love reading your comments and have learnt a lot from the discussions that go on here.

So I thought I would leave you with an ethical dilemma to chew over for the next couple of days - this situation is purely made up and hasn't happened to anyone I know. It also has nothing to do with me - it's all a fantasy to spark discussion.

You are due to work with a new crewmate on a permanent basis. The person you are to work with has been in the job for two years. While idly flicking through some websites you discover that your new crewmate is a fully paid up member of the BNP party (a UK far right political party, 'throw out immigrants, British people come first and throw out all immigrants' would be a fair summing up of their policies), It appears that management do not know this and the LAS has a strong anti-racist stance.

What would do, and could you work with them?

Talk to you all on Monday.

Inspector Gadget explains why the politicians should listen to us bloggers on the front lines.

The news he references are

Former Army chief criticises MoD

Half of Asbo holders breach order

Knife Amnesties 'have no effect'.

And no, I had nothing to do with this. I only really do 'crap' jobs (recent posts not withstanding), so if the government wanted a quiet London they'd just post me to drive around in circles all day.

Technorati Tags: blogging, politics

For those who saw the 'Imagine' programme the other day, the diligent Stuart Burns over at Feelinglistless has created an exhaustive annotation on the programme .

I found the programme funny as I was interviewed for around an hour and a half, and I think I got thirty-six words on screen. And I'm not jealous of Towerhill station which had much more screentime than yours truly.

But I had a laugh being interviewed, so it's all good for me - it's also one of the few times Laura has managed to see me this week...

It's our station's Christmas party tomorrow, which I'm looking forward to, not least because I get to spend some time with Laura.

Technorati Tags: blogging, Imagine, Internet, television

You are invited to a meeting of 'the cream' of the British web, the evening has no real agenda besides 'chatting and seeing what happens'.

So, what sort of set-up do you expect?

Well, the free vodka was a good idea, but putting everyone in a room with pounding music so you can't hear what is being said is possibly not a good idea. Add in the fact that the room is incredibly dark, so half deaf people like me can't lip-read and you have a badly thought out location.

So what do us incredibly intelligent 'cream' do? Clever buggers to a soul, we all decamp outside where it is well lit and there are tables.

...And then the DJ followed us out into the light and pounded us with stupidly loud Dance. For the second time while surrounded by tech people the suggested solution was to disconnect the speakers.

Instead we brave the cold, and like a group of dispossessed smokers we hang around the entrance chatting and 'networking'.

The meet up was a vague affair, done in part to promote 'The Webby's', which is apparently some web based award ceremony. The end date for nominations is the 15th of December and I suspect that they want a few more. Each nomination costs between $150-$250 to be entered. With 5,500 nominations last year, and 15 new categories, it's an idea I wish I'd had...

But the night was good for the excellent people that I met. The first person that I knew was Ian Forrester, who has just designed some rather cool T-shirts. What is nice is that he turns up to all the things that I do and is a constant friendly face. Ian introduced me to Walid Al Saqqaf who (over the pounding music) told me about Trusted Places. Now this is a great idea (and I have signed up), it is a peer review site for cafes, restaurants, bars and cultural places and has a really mature number of features. He has challenged me to find a better kebab shop than Best Mangel...

I also *finally* had a chance to say hello to Tom Coates, we've often shared a place, but I've never been able to talk to him. I think I managed a few words before I was dragged away by a wild haired Rob Manuel of B3ta fame - many, many moons ago he suggested that someone scoop me up for a book deal, so you could say that he 'discovered' me. He also roundly abused me for forgetting to link to my interview I did for him. Something I can rectify here. Some of the answers are vaguely tongue in cheek. Apparently his book is selling better than mine, which makes me glad that we aren't in a zero sum game.

I also managed to chat with Tom Armitage (who has the coolest blog title ever) and Meg Pickard who does lots of interesting stuff on the web. I also managed to meet Suw who, with the release yesterday of the Gower's report has been run ragged.

I also managed to chat with Joel Veitch who does those superb web animations. He's also done one for a charity, which when released I'll link to.

So yes, a bloody fun evening despite the loud music and dark lighting.

Technorati Tags: ICA, blogging, webby

I'm writing this when I should be in bed, but I can't sleep. I can't sleep because you made me angry.

You could have been anything, you could have been a doctor, a teacher, a father. Your family didn't seem poor, you lived with them and now you are dead.

Twenty three years old, a heroin addict.

We tried everything we could, two ambulances were sent. You had the best treatment you can get outside of a hospital, but I guessed that you would stay dead when I saw you laying on your bedroom floor. I was pounding on your chest and all I could hear was your mother crying. I tuned out that crying because we were so busy. There was a little girl, perhaps four years old, they were crying as well. Was it your little sister? I could only ignore her as well, for we were carrying you out of the house.

I didn't have time to register the crying, we were too busy trying to start your heart.

But what did register with me? Sitting outside the hospital while my crewmate was doing his paperwork I saw your grandparents being led away in tears. They were broken. Twenty three years ago they probably thanked their God that you were born safely. Their dreams probably had you as a doctor, a teacher, a father.

Now you are dead, and why? Because you sought heroin, because you wanted that pleasure above everything else.

I don't care about you.

I care about your grandparents, your parents, your brothers and sisters. I want to go back in time and, like the ghost of Christmas present, show you where your path will lead. I want to slap you awake and show you what you have done to your family.

Was it worth that pleasure?

Yes. This job did piss me off. Sorry. And it did cause a sleepless night. I was told by someone much smarter than I that I wasn't a cynic, but that I was often disappointed by the failure of others to live up to their potential. I guess that this job hit all those buttons. The original post had more swearing in it.