junction 24

drug dealing nurse auxiliary has a chat

Junction 24

 

We loaded our trolley with incontinence pads - small, medium, large and extra large; also clean sheets, blankets, and pillow cases - occasionally used as face wipes; a roll of yellow plastic bags for dirty nappies and a roll of red plastic bags for dirty laundry; two boxes of latex gloves, size medium and size large; and a packet of wipes. Dylan grabbed a plastic wash bowl and filled it with water. He squirted in some Fairy liquid and moved his hand back and forth skimming the top of the water to create bubbles.

Dylan dipped a cloth in the bowl.

“Is it hot enough?” I asked.

            “We’ll see if ’is face goes red like innit?”

I shook my head at him; he laughed and started rubbing the patient’s face with the soapy cloth. “Lissen iss fifty quid ago orite? So's then uwe gives thuh girl twenty an tha’ leaves uwe with thirty squid for alf hour’s work. Thirty squids for five girls is undred an fifty squids every alf hour tha’s three undred squid an hour. 'S open twenty-four hours a day tha’s about seven grand a day seven days a week tha’s fifty grandaweek an’ iss all tax free.

“See I nose this bird tha’ll look after thuh place for me. She’s run a couple before. I’ve found thuh location. Juss’ off junction twenty-four on the em four by thuh Celtic Manor house, ana's perfect.”

We turn the patient over onto his side and Dylan takes in a whiff of the s**t packed in the nappy. His face screws up into his bald head and for a moment he looks like a boxer who’s been taken unawares by a sweet uppercut. He rips the pad off the patient and wraps the rest of the s**t up in wipes.

“So imagin it rye uwera business man a suit cummin down to Cairdiff for thuh weekend. Uwe wanna little bit of fun like init? So's uwe look in thuh classifieds an it juss jumps out arew. Junction twenty-four for relief fifty quid.”

He removed the dirty sheets from underneath the patient, and replaced them with clean ones. “I f****n ate these new fitted sheets theyre a nightmare. Pull im more towards uwe so’s I can gets it rye underneath iss arse…k…pass me a clean pad…Uwel catch ‘em all comin’ in from Birmingham and Manchester everywhere iss uwe perfect location.”

We turned the patient onto his back and rolled him so he was facing Dylan; I pulled the sheet that Dylan had pushed underneath the patient and wrapped the corners underneath the mattress. I then pulled through the clean incontinence pad; it already had some s**t stains on it. Dylan couldn’t have cleaned his arse properly, the f****r, but I said nothing. “Now loads of people av said to me when I tells em an they sees thuh pound signs flashing they’ve said Dylan I’ll cum in on it withuwe an I’ve said yeah yeah you can do it but uwe’ve gorra be prepared to take the rap an I’ll tell uwe wha’ I’m prepared to take thuh rap.”

            Dylan lifted the patient’s legs up in the air. “One, two three…” We yanked the pyjamas up his thighs and over the nappy. “E juss needs a shave now un tha be it, tidy…Look e’s smiling the old git… You can hear us cant uwe… John’s gonna give uwe a shayve now, uwe old b*****d.”

            The patient flung his arms into the air. His fists were clenched and he caught Dylan in the lip. “Rye pin im down, shayve im without wetting iss face and uwes one of them rusty old bic's…You shouldn’t have done tha’, uwe b*****d, juss think about tha’ when uw’re the last one we clean on our final round safternoon.”

            Dylan squeezed past the trolley and patted me on the shoulder on his way out of the curtains. “Enjoy.”

            I was left with an aggravated patient, a bowl of cold water, and the realisation that I had another six hours left of the shift. However, Dylan wasn’t the worst auxiliary to work with - he did work. Some of the other nurses disappeared at every possible moment to avoid washing patients. “I’m just off to get a new nappy,” they’d say. Twenty minutes later, after I’d struggled with arms, legs, faeces, wires, shirts and buttons, they would open the curtains, look at me, look at the patient, and comment, “Easy shift this morning; we’re making good time!”

 

After the first, wash breakfast. Dylan and I sat up those who couldn’t sit themselves up, fed those who couldn’t feed themselves, and positioned tables within reach for those who tried to feed themselves. Then, after cold porridge, observations: we checked every patient’s blood pressure, respiration rate, pulse and saturation levels, and then laughed at the “I’m still alive am I” mumbles from those who could talk.

            Today I wasn’t worrying about catching MRSA, or wondering how many times the patient in the cubicle was going to call my name - so she could check that I was OK. And I wasn’t worrying about how long it was until my break, and if I was going to be able to steal some food from the catering trolley, as I didn’t have any money to buy anything. I was worried about the letter I had received in the post yesterday.

            It was an offer of acceptance from Cardiff University to study Nursing and therefore become a qualified nurse. I started looking at the qualified nurses on the ward. They seemed tired, drained, washed out like the sky blue lapels they wore. All these broken bodies had broken their souls and their ability to care.

They complained about workload. They complained about paperwork. They complained about doctors, physiotherapists, social workers, auxiliaries, patients, the ward manager, and the drugs cabinet keys not working properly. They complained about each other, about other wards not lending them pads or drugs, about the price increase of the hospital car parking, and they complained about complaints.

Did I want to become one of these? I enjoyed wearing green epaulets It was easy, we had routines, there was no hassle, and sometimes we could leave early. 

Dylan and I stared out into the car park and I told him what had landed on my doormat. “Well I wouldn’t f*****g do it. ‘Snot worth it, for thuh extra cash they gets” Dylan continued. “thuh thing iss I couldn’t andle em phone calls to dead peoples relatives, uwe wouldn’t catch me doing tha’, buhrye thinks tharew can do it. I aven’t gots the brains” Dylan punches the side of his head. I look at his hands, they are older than his age, the skin was cracked and dry and he had a faded Liverpool liver-bird tattoo across the web between his thumb and pointing finger.

            But he would make a good nurse and I told him so. But why didn’t I believe that I could? I looked to Dylan for support. “I dunno mate, I like being an auxiliary; iss easy”.

“Lissen rye’, don’t be such a twat, ‘uwre lucky enough to geran offer, they must ‘ave thought tha’ ‘uwe could do it, otherwise they wouldn’t ‘ave offered ‘uwe the place would they, and iss extra dollar at thuh end of the day, an think of thuh fanny, all those young student nurses, away from ‘ome for thuh first time, lonely, looking for comfort and support.”

The staff nurse in charge of Dylan and myself came over to us, “sorry to interrupt your terribly important conversation, but we have a RIP in the cubicle, can you sort the body out”.

The Cubicle was warm, the sun bounced off the bright bare walls, and the light burned the back of my neck. “Come on then cockchops, lets wrap this f****r up, Ive gorra couple of calls to make”. Dylan put his hands into his pockets and pulled out two mobile phones. He read a text message from the one in his left hand, “Me missus wants me to bring some nappies ‘ome for the babee.’ He read a text message from the mobile in his right hand “and I’ve to go to Birmingham to meet my supplyer, ‘e’s just ad a new shipment of whizz in. Pure as f**k.”

Reviews

[THE BLACK SEAL]

i liked the accent it added a lot of flavor to it and reminded me of what was going on

[Catrinka]

I really enjoyed this story - the accent was a bit hard to work through, but I still enjoyed it because it's so different that what I hear everyday! Intriguing read, you've got some brilliant stuff here. Feels real, grim realities of life, but your characters handle that well. Good piece of work!

[joshua rainbird]

Hi John

This is an interesting story with an authentic feel. The subject matter is honest and reflects the grimier side of healthcare.

But I have a major concern about how you introduce the story and that's how you write Dylan's speech. It's, frankly annoying when you have to pick over every sentence trying to decipher every word he says. It's worse than reading Chaucer. I'm sure that if you wrote it in plain English that the slur of his accent would be picked up the reader from the vocabulary that you have chosen for him.

There were some real gems in there, though:

- Today, I wasn't worrying about MRSA

- The way the old guy punches back pulls the reader into the story, at that point I wanted to sock one to Dylan too

- I also liked how you used the rant about staff complaining to accelerate the story

- The descriptive elements were spot on - Dylan's actions were more important than the way he looked.

- the narrator has a consistent and rational voice, a strong counterpoint to the surreality of institutionalised care and Dylan's chaos, I felt I had at some point worked with the narrator

In essence you have created a story that introduces credible characters working in a typical modern, British hospital ward. Finally, at the risk of sounding like a eugenecist I think it's alarming that Dylan is procreating - nice ending.

Best wishes
Josh