A Winter's Tale

NIGHTSHIFT POEM

Author: Cristiana Theodoli1

21/1/21

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Some nights Emergency Departments have a life of their own. Coffees abandoned near computers, chilling to the temperature of a December dawn. Gas analysers overheating as staff bring their offerings of blood.

Those nights, a carousel of souls spin in and out of the department, everything happening at once, and we just do our best to keep up.

Those nights we face more life and death than most people face in a lifetime, our thoughts punctuated by the swearing of the inebriated, stripping naked in their bays.

There's a restless energy to those nights; when the standby phone won’t stop buzzing and the triage queue isn't shifting.

Nights made of hushed words of support whispered to each other in the department's corridors.

Short staffed, moulding and stretching ourselves to care for everyone. Late breaks, full bladders, empty tanks.

The soundtrack of those nights is made of ambulance colleagues' voices.

Standbys, handovers and messages checking in with each other as we look after the city in the small hours.

As most people sleep tucked in their warm beds, the city's vulnerable come out seeking help and reassurance.

The elderly patient, who fell after sneaking from her care home giggles as she gives the doctor a hard time; the drug user in the next cubicle being started on antibiotics for an injection site infection.

Those nights, when police officers outnumber staff and security is on speed dial.

Withdrawals, head injuries, assaults. 300+ patients through our doors.

In resus a nurse and an anaesthetist are getting ready to go on transfer with a STEMI to the cath lab, while in minors, children get their wounds glued after wrestling with siblings.

Radiographers' soothing voices, calming patients getting scanned. Families calling for updates. Consultant input high in demand.

Those nights go in a flash and yet feel never ending. Relief only felt as the dayshift walk in, and start their turn on the carousel.

Cristiana x