Do you know who I am?

It appears that during my last run of shifts I was called out to a celebrity. Now I'm no subscriber to OK or Hello magazines but I do watch a fair bit of telly so I do know of some famous people. I also know of a few celebrities who live on my patch. So when a call came in to one of the more dodgy, sorry, deprived areas of town the last person I expected to have on the back of my ambulance was a breakfast TV star.

We've all seen the Little Britain character Vicky Pollard and we all know her catchphrase of "Yer but, neow but, yer but, neow but...." and we are all familiar with that dayglo pink Kappa tracksuit and we all know she is the definition of a Chav. So when I arrived at the address to find the front door hanging off its hinges and someone using four letter words I have never heard of to get their point across with their own personal police officer keeping guard, I was expecting to brush shoulders with Vicky and not someone who has been a star of.......... The Jeremy Kyle show! Not once, not twice but three times! True chat show royalty then.

Not something I would brag about but she took great pleasure in telling me and anyone else who cared to listen. Or that’s what I think she was saying. The alcohol and the inability to sound her "TH's" along with the four letter words certainly made understanding her difficult. With a confused and disgusted look on my face I was waiting for her to ask "Do yous know oo da f**k I is? Innit. Spec bruv".

Not Healthy Service

Next time you are outside an A&E department take a look at the nearest ambulance man or woman. Over the past few years I've noticed that I and my colleagues are becoming slightly portly. I know we are all getting slightly older and maybe letting ourselves go but I have a theory on our expanding waist lines.

The modern ambulance service is a 24/7 operation. We work some of the most unsociable shifts of any profession. What other profession works 1700-0300 or 0100-1300 for example? Because of the way in which we are allocated our breaks (if you are lucky enough to have breaks) chances are you are not going to feel like eating. We don’t get elevenses. We don’t get a lunch hour. We don’t get an afternoon coffee break. We eat and drink when we get the chance. And because of this we usually eat microwave meals or junk food from the local burger van in 30 seconds flat. It's usually washed down with some form of fizzy sugary soft drink or, in the case of night shifts, some form of energy drink.

Couple the poor diet with the amount of time we spend sat on our arse driving from pointless standby to pointless standby, the fatigue of working 12 hour shifts, not to mention that gyms have now stopped giving us discount, you can see why NHS now stands for Not Healthy Service when it comes to the ambulance service

Taxi

I have worked for the ambulance service for just over 6 years now. I have seen sights that should never be seen on a battlefield and smelt things that would turn the stomach of a rat. I have brought life into this world and watched life fade away. I consider myself to be a placid person and there is not much that touches a raw nerve these days but a few days ago a patient did something that really made my blood boil.

Now I don't know about you but I will only dial 999 in an emergency. The English dictionary defines the word emergency as "a sudden, urgent, usually unexpected occurrence or occasion requiring immediate action". So for me to dial 999 the person I'm calling for will need to be, to all intents and purpose, dead. Yet the word emergency means something completely different to some members of society. These people deny someone who genuinely needs medical assistance access to an emergency ambulance.

The lad stated that he had taken an overdose of an unknown quantity of various painkillers. His girlfriend was very upset which was understandable. Despite no physical evidence of an overdose we could not question his integrity and took him to the nearest A&E.

On the way in to hospital, the upset girlfriend took a phone call and mentioned that she was in an ambulance with her boyfriend and that she was on her way to the hospital. Nothing unusual about that. She said they would be arriving in about 10-15 minutes. Again nothing unusual as perhaps a family member was meeting them at the hospital. However, the lad wasn't the sharpest tool in the box and gave me an address that was a five minute walk from the hospital. Alarm bells stated ringing and as soon as the back door was open the lad was out like a scalded cat giving me a two fingered salute.

45 minutes of emergency ambulance time had been wasted on this lad. He wasted the time of a BT operator, he wasted the time of a 999 call taker, he wasted the time of an ambulance dispatcher, he wasted the time of two trained medical professionals, he wasted the diesel, he wasted the maintenance costs but what really made my blood boil was the fact he abused a service to get a free lift home.

We may be yellow but we are not a taxi service.