What more can I say? Work again. Off I trundled, and being a weekend it was really quick to get there. It's hard to describe how many less cars there are on the road here when it is a weekend. There isn't a real 24 hour, 7 day a week culture like in the UK, and if it isn't Monday to Friday, the roads are really quite quiet.
My regular crewmate - as I am sure you remember - was off on the last block of 4 shifts I did, and on arrival at work, sure enough he was still off. I hope it isn't something I said. Waiting for me was a team leader from another shift, in "kicking the till" (we would call it working Overtime). Overtime is quite lucrative as it is all paid at double time - $50 (about 25 pounds an hour).
Anyway, we trundled through the day with nothing to serious, as most of the jobs were hospital to hospital transfers. There are hospitals in a lot of the outer lying regions, but they are both busy, and small, and when they fill up two things happen.
1.) They go on "bypass" (In England we called it divert) and are not able to take any patients, and so in a ambulance we are diverted to the next nearest hospital, or even more frustration, the hospital "ramps" ambulances. This is when they leave the patient in the ambulance, parked on the ramp (I know, it sounds like an airport) until there is space in the Accident and Emergency (ED over here) department, when you can unload.
2.) The other thing that they like to do is transfer people to the bigger inner city hospitals. This is an easy job, as most patients are quite stable, and only need a little tender loving care, and some chit chat on the journey.
6 pm came around quite quickly, and I spent the evening at home laughing at the Australian Cricket Team losing. The local people aren't very impressed at losing cricket teams, but I guess that as an English person, I am used to it.
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