Couldn't Care Less Homes

As part of my job, I also get to do Patient Transport (PTS) work, usually taking patients from one hospital to another, or taking them back home. Most of the patients are elderly, and a good proportion smell of wee, marvellous. I used to think that it was only nightclubs that had sticky carpets, but I also know of a number of care homes that also have a similar feel, I wonder if it's for the same reason? I'll be honest here, this part of the job boils my wee. Care home staff who don't give a toss, the owners of care homes who don't give a toss, no vehicle access, no stretcher access and nowhere to transfer a patient with any resemblance of dignity, all add up to Paul not being a happy bunny.

Last week we arrived at a Residential home 'out of office hours', we parked across the entrance in our discreet little ambulance, you know the kind of thing, bright yellow, battenburg markings, the word AMBULANCE written on the sides, on the back, on the front and lots of lights all over it. We dropped the rear suspension, lowered the ramp, unclamped the stretcher, wheeled the patient out, collected the patients bags, belongings etc, and walked to a locked door, searched for a doorbell, pressed the doorbell repeatedly, to find less life than on the Marie Celeste.

Cue a cold and pissed off Ambulance crew, loading a patient back into the back of the warm Ambulance, and a call to 118118 to get the phone number of the home to ring them, and ask them if it isn't too much trouble, to open the door....

It turns out that there are only three members of staff on 'tonight', and unsurprisingly they were busy, we wheeled the patient into the foyer, then had to lift her from our nice warm comfy stretcher into a cold crappy wheelchair as the stretcher won't fit into the lift.

When we first started to do this job, we thought we were just picking up the crap jobs that the NHS trust didn't want to do, as if they were only picking up the 'gucci' patients, and jobs up, and leaving the crap for us. As it happens, now we can't blame them for not wanting to be messed about, they have targets to achieve, we however, don't....... Thank goodness.