Life is an endless trip of learning
Some things I learned today.
If you have to bring someone to A&E in Ireland, allow for a long wait. Bring a flask, sandwiches and a sleeping bag. Minimum wait, six hours if you're lucky.
No matter how many people are in the waiting in the waiting room, you will always be seen last, even if a load come in after you.
If you SatNav says that traffic is heavy on the motorway and advises you to take an alternative route, believe it. I didn't.
If a bloke stops you on a backroad in the wilds of Wicklow and asks for directions to Cork, pretend to be foreign.
You'll find more people smoking fags in the grounds of a hospital [where it’s forbidden] than you will in the street outside [where it isn’t].
I learn new things each day.
You give this advice to people waiting for attention at an A & E: "Bring a flask, sandwiches and a sleeping bag." I would add a few other creature comforts to this list: a naggin of whiskey or vodka; a pack of cards; a suspense novel; a game of ludo or snakes and ladders; photos of family and pets to show to other people in the queue.
I said to bring a flask? I didn't say what to put in it!
It doesn't seem to matter what entertainment I bring to amuse myself, I always seem to end up either staring at a blank wall or staring out the window. Another thing I discovered yesterday is that some buses have two axles and some have three. I didn't know that before.
I once had occasion to bring to A&E an elderly bachelor farmer, for whom cleanliness was not a strong point, who had been instructed by his GP to go to the hospital because he had gangrene in one of his toes. I was met with an aggressive response at the reception and was interrogated by a nurse who said to me, "he comes in here and we get him cleaned up and then he goes home and gets like this, can't you do anything?" I was so gobsmacked that I didn't point out that I was a country clergyman earning half of what she was being paid and it was no part of my job to provide social care.
We sat for hours while he swore and cursed at everyone around and muttered about me looking at my phone. I became convinced that the whole experience was about the institution was asserting its dominance and power. He had been sent by his own doctor and there was no reason why he could not have been immediately given a cubicle, rather than sit in the waiting room among the Friday evening clients
What were you supposed to do? Adopt him, bring him home and give him a daily scrub down?
To be honest he would have livened up yesterday's wait a bit. The only amusement I had was a druggie pair who looked like they were in for an emergency shot of methadone.
You would have enjoyed him, his favourite word was "shite!" and he was liberal in its application