There was a controversial film released in 1975 starring Jack Nicholson called One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Jack gets out of a long prison sentence by changing his plea to insanity. He finds himself sent to a ward, for what I think we now might call: vulnerable- adult -patients. Jack leads the patients in making life better and pushing the boundaries with the oppressive Nurse Ratchett

https://youtu.be/OXrcDonY-B8

It was controversial, but we might think of it as an observation, a behavioural science, the ease with which we all become institutionalised and a nod to leadership and kindness. As a secondary school teacher I always likened the worst days in school to the film. The students who literally went bonkers. The trouser dropping, the illicit cigarette smokers, the arsonists, the druggies, the language, the downright hilarious antics of teenagers not wanting nor caring a jot about maths. I have to tell you I loved them all…well, nearly all! We always had back up from an expoliceman and his big burly team, who we called the bouncers. They would come to extract the miscreants if required.

So it came to pass that this week I felt somewhat like Jack. I had a telephone appointment with Infectious Diseases. (ID) This is the department who deal with weird not necessarily infectious bugs. The appointment should have been a doddle. I explained the last msu was clear according to my GP text and phone call. I explained I could not get the usual blood tests as our hospital has run out of blood test stuff. I mentioned a sore back and weird cramps. Long and short of it I agreed to go in to London to get checked out and a blood test. In this covid world it is necessary to clear covidness via A and E. The ID team were indeed ready and waiting. Unbelievably efficient and kind and practical. Whilst waiting for a scan I picked up an ‘unknown number’ always  good to answer those. Always medics. . It was the GP surgery. MSU had in fact come back showing a very weird bug. I should have been on IV antibitiocs. Should not have stopped antibiotics in fact. Uh oh. So began a week of IV antibiotics.

A week sharing a ward with 3 ladies. One became my friend straight away. One refused to interact at all and hid behind her curtains tapping a laptop all day all night. Only emerging for the bathroom every so often. The 4th inmate was, as she told us, 100 times, 55, born in Australia, a multi millionaire who was in hospital voluntarily whilst she completed more contracts. She had to go to her ‘office’ every five minutes to sign these contracts and spent hours on the ‘phone’ to various agents. . She kept moving off round the hospital, kept lighting cigarettes and one minute wanting a case of wine, the next yelling at the staff to mind their own business. The staff were so calm. The nicest of all, a big man who looked like he must be a base ball player, endlessly patient, calming her down, making us laugh. All through the night she ranted. The good thing was the smoke alarms clearly did not work. they didn’t go off when she smoked. In fact the staff found out as the smell in the unventilated room was bad and the rest of us were coughing. A nearby men only bay. ( I thought mixed wards did not happen any more) held a sweary yelling man who threw chairs at staff when things did not go to plan. Mmmm, tempting as that sounds, I assure you I did not! A woman from another bit kept coming to the nurses station which was only a curtain away from us, she just swore at them all day long. The staff were amazing. Calmly logging into their robotic screens, a bit like riding a segeway they wheeled them round the ward. Avoiding eye contact with the patients and refusing to change prescriptions unless Eric the computer allowed it.
But of course they were amazing. Yes they had to plug into Eric and scan all patients’ wrists to log drug deliveries. But that is the system.

all the while the ID team were fantastic, keeping me informed, explaining planning organising. Led by an avuncular Professor who could not have been kinder. Notable by their absence was the urology team. That is another story. All the while in the background was Jerome. Watching, checking via Eric, texting, cajoling Urology, more on that later. 

The food was horrendous. Seriously all we want in hospital is tea, nice tea, coffee, nice coffee and toast. Toast, not rubbery cold cardboard. But crisp warm toast. It is not bloody rocket science.

Then just when things seemed to be settling down the crash alarm went bonkers…3 times those poor medics had to run to save a life. Meanwhile, Eric crashed. The whole system just died. The staff could not get passwords to be recognised and simply the whole ward came to a noisy paralysed stop. In no time all this stirred up the inmates no end. Some like me, jammed ear pods in ears and tried to blot out the horrible sounds and noisy staff struggling to beat Eric through the thin curtain sheilding them from us or us from them. Patient A started smoking and B threw a chair and C went on swearing and and and….security came to restore order and patrol the wards. The smoker got taken away. The swearer seemed to go silent and the chairs got put back in place. God knows what happened to A B and C! My new friend and I simply grinned and wondered at it all. We welcomed a new inmate. She was 90. She was just amazing. We helped her get her phone running and sorted some magazines for her. Reached her warm water jug to be nearer her and found her ‘lozenges’. I felt quite bad leaving them all behind. But leave I did. I left via the ‘discharge lounge’. Unlike its namesake; club class lounge at airports, this lounge was a grubby over crowded room . Socially non-distanced patients waiting hours for pharmacy to produce drugs and transport to allow them to go home. I just could not cope. I told the grumpy lady I had to get home before midnight. That I would collect my medication and discharge papers later. I walked out. Got a train. and came home to peace perfect peace. I will tell you more after a long sleep.

•