I arrived at the Royal Adelaide Hospital at noon on New Year’s Eve. My plan was to sit in the accident and emergency waiting room for twenty four hours, straddling the midnight celebrations by twelve hours either side, and watch the carnage roll in. And so, I met with security to collect my visitor’s pass.
“If you need anything, just ask and we’ll do our best to accommodate you,” said the security guard. “But there’s just one thing we ask. If you see any problems – do not approach the problem.”
“No problem.”
I took up a chair in waiting room. An automated sign announced “the current waiting time is more than 5 hours”. It crushed the spirits of those who limped in. People sat with their heads in their hands as the minutes, the hours, crawled by. A scrawny man came in, clutching a pack of Escort blue between twitchy fingers. He approached triage with a twisted anguished face.
“I’ve lost my bag!”
“Where was it?”
“Just here…” he said trailing off.
Lost Bag Man looked around accusingly, crossing and uncrossing his arms, putting his hands on his face, on his hips. He was physically aggrieved. He paced the edges of the room, making everyone nervous, until security took him away to discuss his lost bag.
Police came and went, escorting some, looking for others. A woman with a black eye sat sipping coffee. An elderly man came in with a woman in pink pyjamas. He checked her in, sat her down and then left to get something. And as soon as he left, the woman sprawled out on the floor.
Immediately I felt the urge to help her, at least see what was wrong. Without security’s words of instruction, I may well have intervened. Of course, soon enough, a nurse gave her the attention she so richly desired.
At one point, an enormous man wobbled in. He left on crutches, even wobblier, with a freshly plastered foot, only to return five minutes later, now carrying his crutches and dragging his plaster.
“I want this cut off.”
“You just had it put on.”
“Yeah, but it’s bad news. It’s gone all soft and soggy.”
Then all of a sudden I saw an angry face at the window. Lost Bag Man! Still around, hours after the event! I felt he was looking at me. He was staring. He was looking at me! Lost Bag Man came in. He came right up to me.
“You’ve been sitting here all day.”
“Yeah.”
“Someone stole my bag. You must have seen it.”
“I didn’t.”
“You must have!”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t.”
“What have I done to deserve this? Why is this happening to me?!”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“I think it DOES have something to do with you!”
The security cameras that missed the bag thief must have been trained on me. I was rescued. A nurse came out for a chat. He told me they had eleven nurses rostered on instead of nine, with the usual doctors on call. Alcohol would be the issue. “We have ten times more problems with alcohol than drugs. I’ve never seen anyone pick a fight on an ‘e’. And you almost never see IV users ODing these days. I don’t want to say that people are using responsibly – but they tend to know their own limits.”
“Do people tell you what they’ve had?”
“Yeah, it’s gotten much better over the years. We reassure them that we’re not asking for any legal reasons and it usually works out okay.”
He paused, watching Lost Bag Man pace. “Would you like to spend some time out the back?”
Delighted, I accepted the offer and a new post in a raised work area amongst computers and phones. Around me were thirty odd curtained off rooms, masses of medical apparatus and some overwhelmingly well equipped resuscitation rooms.
People buzzed about. The mood was collegiate and congenial. Calm. It was not what I expected for such a serious undertaking. Someone offered me coffee and others quizzed me on my mission. I was stirred up for my presence.
“You shouldn’t be here. You should be out drinking!”
It seemed pretty quiet in the lead up to midnight. The doctors amused themselves by debating the best way to get a patient response. What is the most effective way to inflict pain?
“Twist the ear.”
“Push on the chest.”
“No, no, push hard on the ridge of the eye socket. It really hurts, try it.” It did.
Someone went around with a clipboard, taking bets on what would be the highest blood alcohol content for the night. I pitched in with 0.31 when a doctor appeared with some shears in his hand.
“Do we have anything tougher than this ring cutter? We’ve got an eight year old with her stomach caught in a zip.”
“Stomach? Not penis?”
“Her stomach.”
Midnight came and went with kisses and poppers and a failed attempt to put the talking clock over the PA. The first ambulance of the new year rolled in eleven minutes later. A fire cracker injury! I could not help but laugh, especially when it turned out to be more of a sparkler injury. Minor trauma, not even burns.
“I bet you guys are busy tonight,” said the unburned.
“It’s idiots like you who make us busy.”
Then came the flood of alcohol poisoning. Messed up, prettied up, women were wheeled in vomiting alongside others, hysterical, kicking off blankets. There were idiotic accidents and injuries, the comatose and, of course, plenty of violence. One man caused such a disturbance that he was detained in a room with a security guard at his door. I left the ruckus to go to the toilet and was shocked, on my way back, when someone leapt out.
Lost Bag Man! My arch nemesis, still lurking about! More than twelve hours later! I scurried away, back to my post, where patients were buzzing, vomiting, crying, carrying on – “No, pleeeaaaaaaaaase not a tetanus shot!”
“Youíve hit your head on a railway track. You need to have a tetanus shot. Now, do you have any Napisan at home, to get that blood out of your shirt.”
“It’s not blood. It’s train track shit!”
“Merry New Year!” someone screamed, setting off the detainee. “Merry New Year! Merry New Year!” he yelled again and again.
The din was oppressive; and it went on for hours. I do not know how the hell anyone can work in an environment like that. The screaming, the shouting, the tears.
“At first it gives you a bit of an adrenaline rush,” someone confided. “But that wears off after a while. For me, it’s about the professionalism. Being trained to do something and doing it well. We do good things here, important things. It gives me real satisfaction.”
Daylight approached with a dribble of car accidents and overdoses. It kept the resuscitation rooms busy. At eight am, the night staff starting clock off. It was time to settle the blood alcohol bet and with the data collated, the top reading was revealed – 0.34!
“I wonder what Flinders got!”
A phone call confirmed that their highest reading was 0.24.
“Soft!”
The cleaners arrived in the ebb of the morning and debriefings took place. The annual patient count topped 50,000 for the first time. The detainee woke up. He was allowed to wash up and security gave him back his torn shirt. A nurse treated the last of his wounds. And no one appeared to stick it up him. I was amazed.
I opted to spend my last few hours in the waiting room. It had transformed into someone’s sick idea of a chill out room. Remnants of fights and parties gone wrong sat murmuring and meek. In time, they thinned out. Those remaining sat with their heads in their hands. The old folks reappeared, and together we watched the eleven o’clock news.
I spent my last hour wandering around saying my good byes. At twelve noon, I handed security back my visitor’s pass (now access all areas pass) to the sound of a helicopter coming in. My shift was over. For the RAH, it never ends.