Weird Conversations

I was walking along the hospital corridors on a weekend, wearing fairly form-fitting jeans and a blouse, when I heard, “Sister! Sister!” I walked on, telling myself that no right-thinking person would address me as Sister. The call came again, more insistent, “Sister!” I turned. It was a middle-aged woman. I waited for her to catch up, thinking she probably needed directions. Instead, this happened, and in my native language, no less:
She: Good afternoon.
Me: Good afternoon.
She: Why do you like wearing trousers?
Me: What would you prefer me to wear?
She: God hates trousers, God does not want you to wear trousers.
Me: Okay.
She: BURN IT.
Me, walking away: Okay.

Call Duty #00

Where I am, doctors are civil service workers, with official hours of 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays. The thing is, though, people don’t just get sick during work hours. They get sick in the evenings, in the dead of night, on weekends (weekends are a lovely time for road traffic accidents). People have to be in the hospital, on call, to take care of situations that arise, attend to patients and generally hold down the fort until official hours when the rest of the hospital comes in.

What joy, to look upon the roster and see that you/your unit are/is on call. To finish a whole day’s work, and then jump right into a second shift, which ends as the next work day resumes. Weekend calls are the worst, having to work from Saturday morning right until Monday morning.

The pressure is immense, having to give everyone in your care their drugs at the right time (or as close an approximation as possible; if 8 patients are scheduled to receive drugs by 7 a.m., you better believe that someone is getting theirs by 7:20) while dealing with emergencies that arise, my personal worst- certifying patients dead, and then being expected to somehow be all bright and alert the next day.

We miss meals, forgo sleep or rest. I’ve seen people have to beg their superiors before they could shower, because their call ran straight into the official work hours and they couldn’t get away even for a moment.

I will be writing a blog post for each call I do, assuming there’s anything to write about- the prayer of any doctor on call is for an uneventful shift in which there are no emergencies, nobody dies, and there are a few hours’ sleep. Stuff happens, though, and that stuff will be shared on here.

Names will be altered to protect the innocent, the guilty and the unsuspecting.