A Clean Sheet

I’m stating the obvious when I say that hospitals are full of very sick people. After working in such an environment for a while, and seeing so many people die, you get the impression that death is part of the furniture. Some people die slowly, some suddenly, some go peacefully and some die in great pain and indignity.

Some deaths are an expected inevitability whilst others are preventable and it’s our job as doctors to recognise those at risk of dying unecessarily and doing all we can to stop the preventable deaths from happening.

This weekend, between the hours of 17:00 on Friday afternoon and 00:00 Monday morning, nobody in Town Hospital died.

Nobody.

Between us, me, Ben, the house-officers and the night team have managed to keep every single in-patient alive. I’m not sure how often this happens, but I don’t think it happens very often. There were some close calls though. There was an old lady who came in with blood poisoning from a urine infection who we thought was on her last legs but rallied round amazingly after we gave her antibiotics and IV fluids. There was a man with kidney, heart and lung failure who we thought was going to die but perked up well with oxygen and fluids. And of course there was Jim, who actually did get to watch the FA Cup final on CCU and when Drogba scored, I’m sure he was the happiest man alive.

Through a combination of good luck and good judgement, everyone who was here on Friday is still here now, along with everyone who was admitted over the weekend.

A clean sheet.