My frustrating week

It has been an interesting week for me. The job hunt is still on, and I am trying to not loose my temper. This is however, difficult. Having spilt with my Girlfriend on Tuesday, and have finally got my St John CRB check back, I was hoping that it would be a week to make up some ground on commencing a post. Not to be. I went into the ward of "Hospital B" (see posts below) and indeed, they have sent me in to order my uniform, and started getting a security badge. "Great" I thought "all I need is that contract they were going to send out and I will be well away". Yeah, right!

Yesterday, I was sent a letter from the hospital. Who, have only now decided to write to me saying that there is a job offer for me. While the ward sister has written on the occupation health form that I am to start in April, the letter states quite clearly that I cannot start until all the pre employment checks are through. The CRB form was actually within the envelope which had the letter in. Adding insult to injury, was the statement that I am down to attend the trust induction... on the 2nd June! FFS! I know the media bang on about the high number of Nurses who are due to retire, at this bloody rate even I will be an OAP before I start a damn job! I am going to have to call back into the ward and sort this out. I would say "Hospital A" are going to be back in the running, but even they are staying quiet so both offers seem dead in the water at the moment.

So, after a frustrating week of progressing in a mainly backwards direction, I have thankfully kept some of my skills up with St John Ambulance. This weeks duty was the league 1 side who were at home. Having got there and found there was an argument shortly after arriving, there was a lot of people needing to be spoken to. This resulted in the corner teams deploying early, and me grabbing my lunch and standing underneath some metal steps for shelter out of the rain. After finishing and wandering to the corner, I noticed there was no county ambulance at the ground. When the team intended for the corner came out, and went in an informed the duty manager who in term spoke with the ground manager. Thankfully, the ambulance turned up at 3:20pm. Turns out one forgot they were going, and the other did not realise they were at the match. Oh well.

The game was uneventful, and I busied myself with preparing the first aid post and leaving my equipment on a dressing trolley. This saves me having to rummage through my first aid bag. I asked the controller (a division superintendent) if there was any way of lowering the back of the bed in the first aid post. I remarked that if there was anyone who needed to be laid flat that I was not sure how to do it. I really wish that I had not said that. About an hour later, near the end of the match, the radio went off with a rather hurried "Sierra Papa to control [radio hiss]". That is the call sign for the stretcher party. They were not raised by radio. Another corner team radioed in with the fateful message "Stretcher party have mobilised to pitch, casualty expected, over". Yup, when me and the duty manager went out, sure as anything, there was the stretcher team picking an injured player up on a "Furley" stretcher, and they turned to face the exit to the first aid post. Damn! Normally, most players get sent to the dressing room, only if they need the bed do they get sent to the First Aid post. Well, I went back in and thankfully got the bed flat before the stretcher reached the post.