Stop Expecting Better

 

I keep hearing complaints like this from my fellow HP's.
"Why do civilians talk down to me all the time?"
"Why does the head porter never take my side in a dispute?"
"Why do people have a go at me when I've done nothing wrong to them?"
"Why do senior staff lie about me or twist things?"
You might have noticed that I have made similar complaints about my own career, legitimately. The invention of the Dignity Statement is for the purpose of undoing and eliminating this situation, for example: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-gas-spanner-programme-2.html. It can't make the head take your side in a dispute, but it will work in all the other examples I gave. The first step to overcoming this bleak state of affairs is actually not learning the Dignity Statements, it is expecting these things to happen. I used to be like that too. Whenever one of the above scenarios unfolded I would storm around the lodge lamenting "That was so unfair!"... "Why did she do that!?"... "I can't believe he just told such a blatant and shameless lie about me!" I was not alone; nearly all my brothers and sisters did the very same, in fact hardly a shift passed without it. I only found a way to integrate these very unpleasant experiences when I realized that I should stop expecting better. We're part of a massive, heartless, mindless, gutless government bureaucracy. The NHS is the world's third biggest employer (after the People's Liberation Army of China and India Railways). It is a purebred mutant baby of the state. 1.27 million servicemen have to be organized into an effective healthcare provision unit with no natural incentives at all for justice, diligence, conscience and duty. More than that, these sentiments are actually discouraged, to say the least, by management. The unspoken truth very quickly sinks in that there are no rewards for honest hardworking service, quite the opposite in fact. Corruption waxes, discipline wanes. Is it any wonder people within it are so spiteful and backbiting? Battery hens peck at each other not the farmer. This realization is actually an incredible liberation. When you stop expecting better from your colleagues, including your brother porters sometimes, you can face the world for what it is rather than what it should be. That is when the Dignity Statements come in. That is the first step to creating a world that is as it should be.

Gaza Hospital Attacked

 

See here for essential background: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/10/gaza-hospital-evacuation.html.
The news is reporting that the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City has suffered a gigantic explosion. It is reported that "hundreds" have been killed. The IDF says that this hospital was not one of its targets, but to me it is incredibly unlikely that this was not the result of Israeli offensive action. (EDIT: This is now seriously been called into question.) They have claimed that Hamas terrorists have established makeshift bases in Gaza hospitals. It is not the purpose of the HPWA blog to discuss the rights and wrongs of what's going on politically in Israel and Gaza now; we're going to focus on the HP's and their duties. The background link below has a wider scope. A spokesman for the Palestinian National Authority has stated that the Gaza hospital infrastructure has now totally collapsed. Water and fuel for emergency generators has run out. A surgeon, Professor Ghassan Abu Sittah, said: "Parts of the hospital are on fire. I don't know whether that is the emergency department. But it's certainly the operating suite, part of the roof has fallen. There is broken glass everywhere." Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUxZFxwwp-Y. From what I've seen, at this point the situation at the damaged hospital is one for the fire brigade, and indeed I have seen videos of firemen entering the premises. Some casualties have been moved to waiting ambulances, but right now the ambulances are the only places they can be treated. There is nothing more we HP's can do at this point. With the breakdown of the infrastructure and the attack on the campuses, probably personnel discipline will also weaken. The surviving staff have their own families and loved ones who need them. I'm afraid I don't fancy the chances much of any patient still left in the hospital. If they were too sick to be evacuated a few days ago, they are unlikely to survive now. The focus must shift to those who have a fighting chance. An Egyptian spokesman claims that the border at Rafah is not closed, but this makes no sense because the bottlenecks of refugees on one side and aid lorries on the other are not moving in either direction. My heart goes out to all those affected by this, in Gaza and Israel.
See here for more information: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2023/10/israel-war-livestream.html.

Gaza Hospital Evacuation

 

There is an ongoing evacuation operation underway in hospitals all over the Gaza Strip. This Palestinian enclave has a population of over half a million in an area of 141 square miles, about the size of the Isle of Wight. The enclave is therefore highly urbanized. The hospitals there are already overcapacity because of retaliatory strikes against Hamas by Israel (as are Israeli hospitals because of initial Hamas attacks). As a former hospital porter I can understand exactly how dire a situation these hospitals are in. Yesterday, the Israeli government warned Gaza hospitals that they had two hours to evacuate all their patients because the buildings risked being targeted by strike missiles and aerial bombardment. The reason is that Israel suspects Hamas has set up headquarters in some hospitals. At my hospital, the John Radcliffe in Oxford, we often did evacuation drills, but this was moving patients quickly from one part of the hospital to the other in case one area was struck by fire, flood or explosion etc. At no time did we think of a contingency involving the evacuation of the entire hospital. The noble welfare group Médecins Sans Frontières, French for "doctors without borders", protested saying that two hours is not nearly long enough to evacuate all the patients. Israel relented and increased the grace period to eight hours. Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/israel-warns-hospital-in-northern-gaza-to-evacuate-by-6-a-m-rights-group/. However, is this long enough? The difficulty in evacuating a patient is primarily dependent on how serious their condition is. The walking wounded can move themselves; somebody with a minor fracture, burns or lacerations can be transported by trolley or wheelchair, but what about somebody in intensive care? How about somebody undergoing major surgery? What's more, where do they go afterwards? When evacuating seriously ill patients there is really nowhere you can evacuate them to except another hospital. If all the hospitals in Gaza have to be emptied, where do the staff take the patients? It is obvious Israel is preparing for a full-scale invasion of Gaza which will probably happen in the next couple of days. The only way out is through the border with Egypt which is currently tightly controlled. There are large hospitals on the far side of the border that will be able to help, such as the Rafah Central Hospital. Obviously Egypt does not want Hamas terrorists in its midst anymore than anybody else does, but if they don't help then there will be carnage in Gaza and 99% of the people killed will be innocent. I salute my Extremely Proud and Dignified Brother and Sister Porters in both Gaza and Israel; as well as the brave civilian healthcare providers. May this crisis end soon and without further atrocity.

Platelet Hand Agitation

 

What is it about HP's that when we do our job we might have to do it well, but not too well? I have been challenged several times in the course of my career, not because I wasn't being a good enough porter, but because I was too good a porter. One of these examples involves platelets. Platelets are blood cells whose function is to cause coagulation when a blood vessel is breached. They clump together at the rupture site and form a gelatinous blockage which eventually hardens into a scab. This is essential for stopping bleeding; without it we could not live. Platelets are extracted when blood components are separated in the transfusion laboratory before being given to patients. They look like opaque yellow fluid and are stored in a plastic bag, illustrated above. Unlike red corpuscles and plasma which have to be chilled, platelets have to be stored at a warm room temperature, twenty to twenty-four degrees. They also have to be continuously "agitated", this means kept in constant motion otherwise coagulation initiates and they set into a solid lump of jelly; making them useless. In the storage cabinet they are put on a machine that constantly lurches and rotates. Now, when I was being trained in the late '80's the porters who trained me told me that when I'm carrying the platelet units to where they are needed I have to do something called "hand agitation". This means simply imitating the action of the storage machine with our hands. I did this for my entire career when delivering platelets. Newer porters didn't do this because that part of our training was discontinued, like so much else in our traditional skill-set. Welcome to a result of the casualization that I have described elsewhere, for example: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2011/09/why-do-we-need-hpwa.html.
 
One day I was delivering platelets and was accompanied by a "boy wonder", a young and well-connected individual with "one foot in the lodge", as we used to say. Basically they all had ambitions to be trust directors and were doing their standard six months in portering for three words on their CV. I can't recall why this boy wonder was with me, but we were standing in a lift together while I did the hand agitation and he frowned and said "Why are you doing that?" I explained why and he immediately replied: "Don't do it please." I asked: "Why?" He said: "It looks unprofessional." I asked him to explain and he made a chopping motion with his hands and said: "I'm not going to have this conversation with you here and now; I am a senior member of staff and I am just asking you not to do that with the platelets." I refused and continued, calmly and politely, to demand some clarity and he said: "Very well, Ben; if you're refusing to obey my order I will have to report you to the office." He looked almost as agitated as the platelets I was holding. I shrugged and said: "Go ahead." He never did. Actually I was never really worried that he would. Despite this, I was dismayed and baffled at his actions, and his insistence that I do not do the hand agitation. What difference does it make? Where's the harm? It is almost as if he had been given instructions to pull the porters up if they did their jobs too well. Are the original skills of hospital portering not merely being accidentally forgotten, they are being deliberately outlawed? Is the enforcement of mediocrity a policy? Is porters' Pride and Dignity a threat? Is expertise and commitment in the Hospital Portering Service a detriment to today's NHS? If so, why is that? I can think of other examples and I will describe them in future articles. Something to think about, isn't it?