PATRICK J. BROCK MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, MANHATTAN
‘Well you’d better get the damn lawyers in, cos this stinks to hell.’
An exhausted Dr Conrad Jones angrily threw two medical charts back onto the desk of Irene Sefton.
‘All right, take it easy, we’re all doing our best. Let’s keep calm and work this out.’
Ten minutes earlier the furious doctor had banged into the hospital administrator’s office, holding two fresh reports from the hospital lab. Two teenage brothers, Karl and Mike Johnson, who had been badly smashed up in a car wreck, had been making good progress, following multiple surgeries for broken bones and lungs punctured by crushed ribs. Both, however, had deteriorated rapidly over the previous three days and were now seriously ill with septicaemia. The doctor had immediately suspected a post-op wound infection, or internal bleeding. The lab reports in his hand, however, were now telling him that both boys had a toxic e-coli O157 infection.
‘For chrissake, Irene, they’ve been in our wards for over a month, so whatever happened, they’ve got this in our hospital. Have we checked out our own damn kitchens?’ he asked, exasperated.
‘C’mon, of course we have, you know that. The whole damn city’s down with food poisoning.’
‘I knew we shouldn’t have put so many patients on the wards. But how the hell is this e-coli spreading around the wards so quickly?’
‘I don’t know, I’m not the doctor here.’
Conrad Jones opened the door to leave.
‘Look, Conrad, we’re all under huge pressure right now. I’ll get your wards cleaned again and I’ll try and get the contractor to put on another cleaning shift. They’re already maxed out on overtime. And you can help by getting all of the doctors to wash their hands in between treating patients – they’re the biggest offenders on the wards.’
‘Thanks, Irene,’ he sighed. ‘Either way we’re screwed, you know. We can’t have patients coming in here with broken bones and dying from a food poisoning bug. From something they didn’t even eat!’