The Trauma Chronicles by Westaby Stephen

Author:Westaby, Stephen [Westaby, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mensch Publishing
Published: 2023-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Needless Deaths

If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want yearlong happiness, inherit a fortune. It you want happiness for lifetime, help someone else.

Ancient Chinese proverb

The transition to working in London was predictably difficult and frustrating. In Alabama, then at MedStar in Washington, I learned to push the envelope to benefit the sick. Yet while we had great doctors and nurses back home, the organisation of the NHS revolved around cost containment. Saving money trumped saving lives, and I was perpetually disturbed by that. My personal objectives remained focused on finding a teaching hospital post in cardiac surgery, but in comparison with the United States, even my time at Great Ormond Street and the Hammersmith Hospitals was a disappointment. But saying so was never going to boost my career prospects.

I’d been back just a few weeks when I received a desperately miserable call from the mother of an old school friend. She was an intelligent woman, a lawyer, who was beside herself with grief. Earlier that evening her son’s motorcycle had been nudged off the road by a lorry and smashed into a lamppost at high speed. He was now in the casualty department of a general hospital in the north of England and his parents were informed that he was unlikely to survive. That was the only information that they were given. In despair, she wondered whether I would call to enquire what injuries he had sustained and what was it that heralded the dismal prognosis. The caller hadn’t responded to questions and she was troubled by his defensive tone.

What else could I do. Obviously I felt obliged to probe, but from experience I knew the call to be unwelcome. Unnecessary interference at a difficult time. The dialogue went as follows:

‘Hello, could I have a word with Sister in Charge please?’ Then came the curt response which I fully anticipated

‘I’m sorry she’s busy with a patient. I’m the receptionist, can I help you?’

I said ‘I’m a surgeon in London and gather that a personal friend is with you after a traffic accident. Would someone be prepared to have a word with me about it?’ The line went quiet for a few seconds, then came ‘Sister’s with him now, but I’ll see if someone else will talk to you.’ Then I waited. And waited. And waited for a very long time.

Eventually, a male voice said ‘Hello, I’m the senior house officer. Can I help you?’

‘Hopefully you can, I’m enquiring about the motorcyclist whom I believe is in the Emergency room.’ Again a pause.

‘Yes, I’ve been looking after him and I should be there now.’ I felt told off. ‘He’s not doing well I’m afraid. His abdomen is distended and the chest X-ray doesn’t look good. A widened mediastinum.’ That’s the middle bit between the lungs on each side. ‘He may have ruptured his aorta.’

So I politely asked who was going to sort it all out and in what order? A torn aorta and intra-abdominal bleeding is a worrying combination.

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