Friday 25 November 2011

Bother vs Bovvered

Rule number one of EMS:

The likelihood of a patient apologising for calling the ambulance,

is diametrically opposed

to the patient's actual need to apologise

for calling the ambulance in the first place.

Examples from a recent shift:

The patient who was practically blue,

wheezing and gasping for breath,

who uses one of those precious breaths

to utter the words

"I'm sorry to bother you."

Or, the patient who, without a second thought

having had a sore throat for an hour

decides that they need to see a doctor now,

whatever the time of day,

and when asked if he realises that he's called

an emergency ambulance,

shrugs his shoulders,

looks down his nose,

and grunts: "Bovvered?"

3 comments:

jen said...

we can allways tell if it a 'real' call when it starts with....'i'm sorry to bother you but....'

shocking how true what you said is

Linda Wyatt said...

I've found this to be true, as well. The ones who apologize generally didn't need to.
It troubles me how many people there are out there who don't know enough to take care of the simplest thing, or don't care to know- or simply don't care, at all, about whether they are misusing resources or not.
It doesn't happen here as much as in a lot of other places, but it still happens.

TAZ THE AMBO said...

Yep.