Friday – More working days

It was another fun filled day. I didn't have to really stretch myself while at work, but all the same it was work, so I couldn't just go through the day on autopilot.

I woke up after not having much sleep. The room that I am in now is different to the first room I was in. There was a mistake over room allocations, and I was given a doctors room, not a nurses room. This one hasn't got air-conditioning, a lot thinner, less comfortable mattress, and no rug/carpet on the floor. As it is for only one more night, and then a couple afternoons where I am trying to sleep, it's not a problem really.

Also last night I didn't get home until about midnight, after being Simon Cowell in a local music event. Actually I wasn't the judge, but I was a very harsh critique. 3 of the 4 bands that played were dreadful. I was out with 5 or 6 of the nurses from Accident and Emergency at the hospital, and another paramedic who is also staying in the nursing quarters.

Work was filled with a variety of jobs. The town is quite well equipped if you want to stay in a nursing home, as there are a lot of them, it seems, although only one has the illustrious title of "The Nursing Home". The others are all quite imaginatively named as well.

Out here we get our work via a phone call from the Operations Centre in Perth. We are the only ambulance here, and if more than one job of work comes in, they phone us again, and see if we can either do both at the same time, or whether we want to go to the other one – depending on the type of job it is.

If there is too much work, we'll phone some off duty guys to come in and do the job. (Overtime is obviously paid at a very satisfactory rate). Anyway today, we didn't need to call anyone in, as all the stuff was moving Mazy or Joan or Fred from the hospital to the nursing home or from the nursing home to the doctors' clinic, etc. We did drive out of Geraldton about 40km to see some lady who had hurt her back, and was struggling to get out of bed.

I think that Eddie (the other paramedic) has some more music contests that he wants me to help him judge again tonight, so I had better go and get cleaned up. I hope they have fixed the hot water in the showers!!!