I had rounds, like the consultant, but I delivered supplies to the different wards and I collected rubbish. There was an incinerator so you could get rid of a lot of waste on site. Other bags would be marked as sharps and you’d take special care to put these in their allotted place. Then there was the laundry collection and that was good for an extra cup of tea and a yarn.
A sample conversation: ‘Maternity’s busy.’
‘Sure is.’
‘You’d think that cold spell we had last March these men would be keeping it in their trousers.’
‘So you’d think.
‘But no, the zips must have been up and down like President Kennedy’s.’
‘Aye.’
One of the jobs you had to do was to help take a body out to the mortuary. You could go months without a death happening on your shift. When it did, you’d get a call from the ward. Then you’d go and fetch a different trolley. This one was long enough and it had a hinged metal lid so everything was discreet. If it was during the day porter’s hours, you’d go and get him to help. If it was at night, the ward sister would lend you one of her nurses and see if she could get a male nurse from one of the men’s wards.
The guys were good about swapping shifts but this day I was keen to get off an hour early to get to a meeting. I forget which brand of religion I was exploring at the time. Of course we were changing the world. History was on our side.
A new day porter had just got a start but he seemed OK for the crack. Glaswegian but he spoke slower than most so you could sometimes get at least two words in three.
So I asked him, any chance you could stay on an extra two hours and I’ll be owing you? ‘No bother,’ he says, ‘but just cover me for an hour. I’ll get down the road. Get some dinner in me first.’
‘Fine.’
But he’s just out the door when the phone goes in the canteen – I’ve got the chairs up on the tables and the mop’s out – but I get to it OK. ‘There’s been a death in female medical. You’ll need to get the day porter. We’ll have everything ready for you in about fifteen minutes.’
It needs two people to lift a body out of the trolley on to the slab.
Now I can’t tell her I’ve just made a deal with said porter which means he’s not where he should be right now. So I have to come up with a contingency plan. I happen to know that a guy who used to be a day porter is in the hospital pharmacy now. So I go and whisper a word in his shell-like and he says sorry, he’d like to help but the back’s been a real bastard – that’s why he got the move in the first place so he just can’t risk it.
Plan B has to kick in. Accept the help of the nurse to get the trolley out to the mortuary and wait till the Glasgow cove gets back on scene. Then we can lift the body out together.
So it’s a student nurse and she’s not done this before. Everything is very discreet. The body is always sewn up in a crisp shroud so you don’t see the features or anything. These nurses have the techniques for lifting, you wouldn’t believe it. Slight wee things joining hands under a hefty patient and easing her where she needs to go. Impressive. So the ward sister, the student and me, got the body in the trolley with some dignity. I swung the lid over and we were on out way. When I say ‘we’, I mean the two of us, the nurse and me. Or the three of us if you count the deceased.
We’ve got to keep some flicking decorum. No fancy swerves at the corners.
The student was so relieved when I said, that was the job done for now. ‘The other porter and me can see to the rest of it at the change-over.’ So she doesn’t ask any further and she’s gone back out that door before you can say cheerio.
Fine, so far, except your man is a bit on the late side and I’m in that mind-set. We’re talking religious investigation here – mission mode. And I’m that relieved at staying out of trouble so far. Trouble with a plan is once you’ve formulated it you think the thing is done already. So I just forget to say we’ve a wee job to do first. And of course when God’s on your side too, it’s possible to get a shade complacent.
I got to the meeting, more or less on time. I was oblivious to the fact that a law of the universe was kicking in. In the next hour, before the night porter came on shift, the new day porter took a phone call. Male medical ward. Another death. But no-one’s done the full induction for the new man so he hasn’t done a death before. So the sister – that red-haired, striking one – she talked him through it. Sure enough, the key worked. He was in the mortuary and the trolley was there.
But remember, he’d never pushed it before and the lid was down. So he was wheeling the body I’d not long moved out of the hospital back where it came from. With a bit of difficulty, he negotiated the bends. The sister and the nurse were holding the swing doors for him in the side ward.
Fine.
But when the nurse lifted the lid she jumped three feet into the air. As you know, but they didn’t, that trolley was already occupied.
Like I said, they’re all sewn up but when you’re expecting an empty void in a covered trolley, the outline of a body in a shroud must be a bit shocking.
‘Oh well, they’ll be company for each other,’ the day porter said. And of course, with a fair number of chess-moves, everything got sorted.
Meanwhile, our group was finished doing its bit to save the rest of the planet by prayer and were tackling the cakes and savouries.
The state of mild euphoria lasted till I came in to start my rounds next day. I got called to Female Medical.
‘What were you thinking of?’
Some of the other sisters in that hospital would have gone straight to my boss. I might have been out the door and down the road that day. The red-haired one told me I’d nearly given her poor nurse her own heart attack but after that she had to say they’d all made a full recovery. Except for the two who were dead already.