Tuesday – Both of these were Ambulances!!!

While I was working in England, there was a poster up in the hospital and also in a couple of ambulances, which had a picture of an ambulance and a taxi, and in bold writing a statement that said "Only one of these is a taxi!" It was to remind people that if they only needed transport to hospital to call a taxi, and if they genuinely had an emergency, to call an ambulance. I'm not sure how effective the campaign was.

I've tried to find a photo of the poster – I thought I had it on my computer, but alas nothing. Well today made me think of that picture and have a little chuckle to myself.

The day (starting early at 0700) has had its usual amount of hospital transfers, airport retrievals, and finally half way through the day – an incident at a nursing home with someone who was struggling for breath. "Bless, at least someone today needs me." So off we went, making a lot of noise, and flashing a lot of lights towards the nursing home.

We had a cryptic message from Ambulance Control, about how they were sending us another ambulance for assistance. We didn't complain, but the type of call wasn't the type of call that automatically two ambulances get sent to.

When we got there, we were greeted by the nursing home staff, and ushered into the room where the lady was. Suddenly I realized what the second ambulance was for. One leg of the person we had been sent to could easily have weighed as much as me.

The lady needed to be in hospital, but there was no way that we would be able to load her into the ambulance. I came up with what I thought was a good idea; "If people use Ambulances instead of taxis, how about using a taxi instead of an ambulance?" After the 4 of us discussed it, it seemed that we had struck on a great idea.

We contacted Ambulance control, and the boss thought it was a great idea, and called for a taxi that the lady's wheel chair would fit into. I road in the taxi, in case there was any treatment necessary while we were enroute, and Matt (my crewmate) followed in the ambulance. I don't actually know what we could have done, if she had really taken a turn for the worse, but at least she was in the hospital in the end.

How ironic – the only person who really needed an ambulance all day actually went to hospital in a taxi.