for that,’ Louise said, though she was sure that Elaine would take rather a lot more convincing, ‘I’d better get back to handover.’
‘Sure. Oh, and, Louise…’ Just as she was about to ring off Kelly called her back. ‘There’s an eight-week stretch coming up in Outpatients, just after you finish on the surgical ward. The hours are eight till four, except on Wednesdays when you’d have to stay till five. The work might not be quite as varied or interesting as you’re used to, but the hours are great and at least you’d know where you’d be for a while.’
‘It sounds great,’ Louise enthused. ‘How do I apply?’
‘You just have to say yes.’ Kelly laughed. ‘Can I put you down?’
‘Sure.’ Louise blinked. ‘I mean, yes, please.’
‘Done! I’ll pop the details in your pigeonhole. Now, if you have any more problems with Elaine, just give me a call, but I’ll be up on the ward doing my rounds around eleven. I’ll come and say hello to you then. Welcome to Melbourne General!’
Even Elaine’s sour expression as she walked back into the meeting room and took her seat at the table couldn’t dampen her spirits.
Eight more weeks of guaranteed work!
OK, outpatients wasn’t exactly cutting-edge nursing, but Louise truly didn’t care. She’d have directed the traffic in the staff car park if it guaranteed her a wage! Eight weeks on top of these four meant that she had work for the next three months. It would see her right up through Christmas, and also meant she could start looking around for a rather more suitable home!
‘We’re up to bed nine.’ The nurse next to her pushed a handover sheet towards her as the lethargic night nurse—who’d been yawning before—now zipped through the patients with renewed energy, clearly buoyed by the prospect of home and bed. ‘I’ll fill you in on the rest after handover. I’m Shona by the way.’
‘Thanks, Shona.’ Louise smiled, snapping on her pen and running her eyes down the handover sheet, which thankfully contained the names and details of all the patients on the ward with a space left for her to add her own notes. Despite the rocky start to the morning, despite the rather frozen look on Elaine’s face as she’d returned and sat down, Louise was utterly determined to enjoy the rest of the day—back in the workforce, doing the job she loved. Nothing could spoil that except…
Room 3 Age 35 Danny Ashwood APFI
For a second Louise froze, reading again the small amount of information about the patient in Room 3 and trying desperately at the same time to concentrate on the details that were being given about the patient in Room 10.
It couldn’t be him, Louise scolded herself, writing down a complicated antibiotic and IV regime, listening carefully to the handover. But at the same time a small part of her brain was having its own conversation and every now and then, between patients or when the handover was interrupted by a phone call or a nurse popping her head around the door for the drug key, Louise couldn’t help but listen to the argument that was raging somewhere in her mind.
It couldn’t be him because for one thing he lived in England! As if Daniel would be here in Melbourne.
As if!
Anyway, this patient was called Danny—Daniel never shortened his name! And it wasn’t exactly a rare one—there must be loads of thirty-five-year-old Daniel Ashwoods around the world and no doubt a fair share of them were in hospital at this very moment with abdo pain for investigation.
It could even be a woman, Louise reasoned. Whoever had typed up the handover sheet might have spelt the name wrong! She was getting worked up over nothing—no doubt the patient in Room 3 would turn out to be a thirty-five-year-old named Danielle with endometriosis.
Silencing the voices in her head, Louise’s lips moved into a pale smile—she was just being paranoid.
‘Right!’ Handover completed, Elaine looked down at her notes then at the team of nurses as she worked out the complicated task of allocating patients. ‘Have you had any experience on an acute surgical ward, Louise?’
‘Quite a bit.’ Louise nodded. ‘I worked on a high-dependency—’
‘OK,’ Elaine cut in, clearly not remotely interested in where Louise had worked before. ‘I’ll give you some easy ones this morning and then you can help out anywhere else you’re needed. Beds 4 through 8 are all due to be discharged after morning rounds, so can you take them, please? Make sure that their discharge letters and drugs are all in order and check that the district nurse has been booked for Mrs Hadlow in bed 5. I’ll take beds 1 to 3, though I might need a hand with Jordan in bed 1. He’s just out of ICU with a tracheostomy—are you comfortable with tracheostomies? If not,’ she said, despite Louise’s nod, ‘call me or Shona if you’re at all concerned.’ Louise waited for further patients to be added to her rather paltry workload, but Elaine had already moved on, leaving Louise feeling curiously deflated. For the last couple of weeks she’d dreaded this day, had been reading each and every one of her nursing books and cramming in information, determined not to turn to jelly on her first day back to nursing. And though she knew she should be pleased to be eased in gently, she still felt just a touch disappointed, as if she’d been training for a marathon only to find out it had turned into a rather gentle jog around the park.
‘I’ll show you around,’ Shona offered, and Louise gratefully accepted.
‘Don’t worry,’ Shona said in a dry voice as she took Louise on a quick tour of the ward. ‘Elaine’s just as lovely to everyone on their first day—I think she just likes to make it clear who’s the boss.’
‘Well, she’s made it very clear,’ Louise said in an equally dry voice, but with a smile on her face, deciding that she liked Shona.
The other nurse grinned back. ‘Right, to business. The whole ward is basically shaped like the letter H—you’ve got the patients’ rooms running along either side. A few single-bedded rooms and some double-rooms with the all the sickest patients are in the middle, near the nurses’ station. That’s beds 1 to 3 and beds 25 to 28.’
‘Is bed 3 very unwell, then?’ Louise blushed as she fished for a little more information on the mysterious Danny Ashwood, but Shona just laughed.
‘Very embarrassed, I think, would be more apt,’ she said cryptically, then carried on with her introduction to the ward. Louise desperately tried to pay attention, but over and over her eyes were drawn to the closed door of Room 3. ‘Each corridor is a mirror image of the other and in the middle is the nurses’ station, doctors’ room and the NUM’s office—but Elaine takes it over whenever Candy’s off duty. This is the pan room—I’m sure you’ve seen plenty in your time. The clean room’s the one opposite—dressings, IV trolleys, that type of thing. Next door we’ve got the equipment room, which is kept locked or the other wards nick our IV poles…’ They were chatting as they were walking, Shona pointing things out as they went.
‘You’ll soon get used to it.’ They were back to the middle now and both stopped while Louise got her bearings. ‘This screen lights up when a patient buzzes—red means it hasn’t been answered, green means there’s a nurse in attendance. And here’s the crash cart. Do you want to go through it? I’m supposed to check it today so it’s no trouble to do it now.’
‘Please.’ Louse nodded. The crash cart would be needed in an emergency, not just when a patient
