The band plays on as The Titanic sinks. And by The Titanic, I mean the NHS. And by the band, I mean healthcare professionals.
I have never felt so tired in my life, it doesn’t matter how much sleep I get. Every day at work is the same, all the calls blur into one, same description down to the truck. Difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, pyrexia, cough, covid positive, covid positive, covid positive. Endless jobs that never needed an emergency ambulance but somehow we got there anyway. Stay at home, you don’t need the hospital, no you are just unwell with corona. Refer to GP, call out of hours, leave at home with worsening advice. Or they’re super sick, but they never look it, it doesn’t look like hypoxia, there’s no cyanosis, how are you speaking to me with oxygen levels below 50, how are you able to talk and move? High flow oxygen, the closest hospital not on bypass please, blue lights, keep breathing. Admission to the ITU, tubed as we leave the resus bay.
Waiting, waiting, general broadcast, we have 20 calls holding, with additional lower priority, please go green if you can. Sorry dispatch, we’re delayed, waiting for call backs and referrals. General broadcast, cat one, cat one, CPR in progress, is there a truck, is there someone out there? Hello dispatch, we can take it, our paperwork will wait. Blue lights, wriggle into the tyvek suit, strap on your FFP3, please don’t let the filter fail. Where’s the waver? Hello dispatch, call as given, please send back up, CPR in progress. Hello dispatch, call not as given, patient conscious and breathing. Hello dispatch, stand everyone down, the patient is obviously deceased. Hello dispatch, we have someone back, please blue lights to the nearest hospital. Note in the paperwork, confirmed dead at hospital.
Patients waiting, patients dying, patients not getting an ambulance fast enough because we have too many calls. Record number of calls across the service, record number of patients attended, record number of staff off sick. Staff member in hospital, staff member in ITU. Obituary. Spend Christmas by yourself because you’re sick. Don’t see another living person in 6 days. When was the last time you had a hug? It’s been a year since you’ve seen your family. I love my job, I love being a paramedic, I moved across the world to do it. But I have hit my limit and I am so tired. All my patients are covid, and so few genuinely need an emergency ambulance response, they want a check up, they want reassurance, they want medication. So I do their checks, I give them the reassurance, I call their GPs and organise care, antibiotics for the secondary chest infections, I give advice, I clean everything and I go again. I have been exposed to covid more times than I will ever be able to count. I’ve seen the spectrum, I’ve been part of that spectrum. I have been to four deaths in two weeks. For reference, I went to my previous four deaths in 9 months. I took a man to hospital whose son was already on the ITU, the man’s father had just died. Everything is covid, everything is heart breaking. We don’t have the beds, we don’t have the staff, we don’t have the resources, it feels like we don’t have the oxygen. We are not coping. And I’m beginning to wonder if I am coping. This time last year my country was burning around us. This year my new country is succumbing to a virus. How much more can one heart take? Most of us don’t know when we will be allowed home to see our family, we don’t know when this will be over. Will it ever be over?
I will probably never be able to read a book or watch a movie about a pandemic, real or otherwise. No more contagion fiction for me, no Station 11, it nearly caused a breakdown. A whole chunk of stories I can no longer enjoy. My hands are cracked, they bleed with the slightest bump, my lips are chapped. My mum asked how I was feeling, I told her I knew I looked terrible, she was allowed to say it. Pale, dark rings, spots, exhausted. I looked better when I was at the end of being sick. Please get your vaccine, please wear your mask, please wash your hands, and stay home, and leave space. I know you’ve had enough, I’ve had enough, we are all over it, we are bored of it, we are tired, we are stressed. But we cannot keep going unless something changes. So if you clap, clap, but please follow the rules. I would like to see this summer at the beach, eating ice cream and laughing with my friends. I would like to see the spring, cautious, hopeful, I want to be able to visit flower fields and drink lemonade, and hold hands, and hug. I want to be able to go home, and spend time with my family, halfway across the world. I want the world to open up, I want us to see each other again. I want us to live. The band is still playing at The Titanic goes down. Our audience has left us, the conductor has thrown away his baton and leapt onto a lifeboat. But we are still playing, and we will keep playing until our instruments break.
