Hospital Civilians Drug Patients

 

One of the best things about being a hospital porter is that you know you're one of the hospital good guys. Now, I am very well aware that we're definitely not perfect, for example: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2021/05/paul-farrell-jailed.html; but generally speaking we're lilywhites compared to the civilian professions. Very often when some act of scumbaggery occurs in a hospital, fingers instinctively point at the porters, but this is a myth that is losing credibility with each turning of the news cycle. Catherine Hudson was a nurse at the Blackpool Victoria Hospital and she has just been sentenced to seven years in prison for gross malpractice. Her accomplice, Charlotte Wilmot, has been described as a "healthcare worker" which probably means a nursing auxiliary or HCA; and she has got three years. The two served on a stroke unit and during nightshifts gave their patients extra sedation to keep them quiet in order to make the nurses' jobs easier. Hudson and Wilmot made spiteful jokes to each other on Whatsapp. I don't think that alone is necessarily insidious, as I've said before, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2020/05/sick-hospital-video.html; but in this case it does seem to have served as incitement to genuine malice. Source: https://news.sky.com/story/nurse-and-healthcare-worker-jailed-after-patients-sedated-for-easy-shift-13029474. This "culture of abuse" went on for at least a year. It ended when a student nurse, known only as "Nurse A" for legal reasons, blew the whistle. She had been doing a stint on the hospital wards and discovered Hudson and Wilmot's conspiracy. Management at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust made a public statement praising the decency and courage of Nurse A... but in private I am sure they are cursing her name. I suspect once she qualifies she will be blacklisted and find a lot of career obstacles mysteriously appearing in her path. I am sure this "culture of abuse" is everywhere, and management know it and look the other way. Occasionally it pops up, like in this case and the terrible one in the background link below; but the only thing managers lament is the scandal it causes. It's the law of the jungle on those wards and the patients are the prey.
See here for background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2015/12/nhs-nurses-destroy-patients-doll.html.

Women who Love HP's

 

I'd like to use this year's Valentine's Day to pay homage to a very special kind of woman. Women who love hospital porters. This is not my own partner; I don't have one at the moment. I did once and she was also that special kind of woman, naturally. What is so special about loving hospital porters? After all, are we not loveable? Of course we are, but we're not supposed to be. We live in a culture where relationships have been reduced to a disposable consumer product as much as everything else. The average endurance of a romantic partnership, should you be lucky enough to find one at all, is far shorter than it used to be. Convention demands that when we encounter a suitor we assess him or her as we would any other product; what can this man or woman do for me on a practical level instead of what personal qualities it is about him or her that we admire? The practical assessment includes the social status one achieves, how you measure up to others in the great hierarchy of life. This can involve a "trophy wife/husband". To fall in love with somebody of low social status means sticking two fingers up to convention and saying: "I love this man/woman!" despite conformist pressure. Septimius Severus once said: "Most men would rather face an army than the scorn of their peers." But for women you could multiply the armies by a hundred because most women find it harder to resist peer pressure than most men. They have to put up with their friends and neighbours frowning at them and muttering: "You'd think she could find a bloke with a better job!" Other men will come up to her and say things like: "What do you see in him!? He's a loser! I could give you so much more..." The amount of moral courage necessary to stand in the face of all that is incalculable. To stand and say: "I don't care! He's a great man for many reasons. And you mention his job; well he's doing one of the most important jobs in the entire world. I'm proud of him for that!" I won't be sharing this post on social media like I normally do; I'll leave it here only for dedicated HPWA readers. One reason, I must admit, is that several names come to mind when I think of these special women and I don't want to embarrass them if they recognize themselves. One had a husband who was a famous vampire hunter, as well as a HP. Another helps run a UFO group in the east of England. Her current husband is not a HP, but her first one was. I hope those two and all the other great ladies who love HP's have a wonderful Valentine's Day.
See here for more information: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2024/02/valentines-day-livestream.html.

And: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2025/02/valentines-day-2025-livestream.html.

Downtime Guilt

 

I've had an angst-filled letter from a brother porter at a UK hospital, one I count among my valued readers of the HPWA and listeners of The Gas Spanner. He is unfortunate enough to have a management team whose understanding and experience of hospitals is nonexistent. He was in the lodge with some of his fellow porters one day when a manager walked in and asked them in a demeaning tone: "Don't you chaps have any work to do?" As I read this I rolled my eyes and groaned. What the manager was objecting to was what is known as "downtime", something we porters more often call "between jobs". In hospitals, our workload is unpredictable by its very nature. The number of porters you have on a shift is not the number you need to carry out all the particular tasks at a particular period of time, for that is impossible; it is the number you need to do whatever is required of us at the maximum estimated workload rate for the entire shift. In fact it is sometimes necessary to call in supernumerary staff for a situation like a major incident. It's not like a factory where there are orders and schedules for everything that allows us to plan in advance. The inevitable result is that for certain time periods we will have no work to do. Anybody with any knowledge at all about HPing would realize this. Anybody who asks such a stupid and insulting question to porters between jobs has no such knowledge. Maybe it's a sign on the times. During the last few decades, management has changed from being a role given to people within an organization with the right skills and experience, to a separate profession in itself. Head porters and other administration staff are more often parachuted in from business school or polytechnics than being promoted seniors or supervisors. We can spot them a mile off; they are usually very young, very smartly dressed and as thick as sluice water. They are the people most likely to become "good idea fairies", see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/01/good-idea-fairies.html. They also hate being called head porters, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/08/sometime-in-themid-90s-i-had-rather.html. This stupidity is not as recent as you might think; in fact an old porter once told me there was a blockhead at the Churchill in the '60's with a bee in his bonnet about portering downtime. He had all sorts of hatchling insights which he was sure would to "solve!" the "problem!" like cutting the postroom staff down to delivery only and making the lodge porters sort the mail between jobs. How the mail was supposed to be sorted during busy shifts had not occurred to the solitary cerebral neuron he used to think with. In some hospitals they have even tried to abolish the lodge altogether. The "new lodge" at the JRH appears to be specifically geared to be a transitional phase leading to that kind of future, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/08/new-lodge.html. I've seen porters standing in a line outside the lodge door and even sitting on the floor. What is really horrid is that management appear to be trying to manipulate the porters emotionally. They want us to feel "downtime guilt" whenever we are between jobs. They do this by making changes to the lodges such as less comfortable chairs, removing privileges such as TV sets, kettles and microwave ovens, and the aforementioned visits from desk warriors to ask snide and sarcastic questions. Do they really think that if they inject some kind of whip-cracking negative incentive we will somehow overcome this appalling laziness baked into our portering bones? A laziness that magically disappears whenever we enter a busy workload period... coincidentally!

Matilda Pigtail Girl

 

A while ago I wrote an article about a scene from the 1996 Sony Pictures film Matilda, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2020/05/pride-intelligence-guts.html. I'd like to address another scene. It's a daring thing Roald Dahl did, as well as those who adapted his book. Child abuse is not a laughing matter, and Miss Trunchbull is typical of Dahl's adult villains, very irreverently portrayed and completely over the top. Yet again we see the tables turned against the bully by the reaction of the would-be victim and their friends. This time Trunchbull decides to pick on a sweet and diminutive girl called Amanda Thripp. The reason is, Amanda has her hair in pigtails and Trunchbull doesn't like pigtails. After some verbal humiliation, Trunchbull picks up Amanda by her pigtails and spins her around herself like a throwing hammer; Trunchbull being a former Olympic hammer throw champion. She hurls Amanda into the air with enormous force. The girl is tossed high and long over the school fence; however, in the middle of the trajectory, she gains control of her flight and lands softly in a field of beautiful flowers. She slides through the field, grinning with delight as she picks the flowers on the way. When she comes to a standstill, she stands up, shakes herself and holds up the bunch, waving to her friends who cheer in response. Miss Trunchbull is furious at the outcome. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7CZ4ev7gHc. This is very similar to the cake eating scene with Bruce. The abuser finds her own actions backfire against her by the response of her target and the support of her friends. That is the lesson we hospital porters must learn, and anybody else in a similar situation.

See here for more background: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2017/09/drop-dead-fred-film-review.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-future-by-stefan-molyneux.html.

The Delegation Argument

 

I had a very upsetting conversation once with a theatre porter. I said: "We porters are part of a life-saving team." He responded: "So if the police do a raid and catch some bank robbers, yet just before the raid the inspector asks his secretary: 'Can you pass me that pen?' and she does it, is she also part of the team who catches the bank robbers?" What made me so sad was that this theatre porter was arguing for his own worthlessness, yet that didn't deter him. Despite what you might think, it actually doesn't bother me that much when civilians look down at porters; it bothers me far more when porters look down at porters. Many many times when you, as a HP, approach others with anything short of shoulder slumping humility you will be hit with the delegation argument. "But all you do is push a trolley. If you weren't there anybody else could do it. When I was in hospital I saw a nurse pushing a trolley etc etc." This comment shows a total ignorance of hospital matters. In Ireland anaesthetists and anaesthetic nurses are not needed in delivery to do epidurals; obstetricians do their own epidurals and are assisted by midwives. Does this mean therefore that anaesthetics and anaesthetic nurses are worthless? If they then move on to the "pass the pen" development, you should ask your interrogator: "Alright then, where is the line drawn?" At what point does one become a person of value even though they can also be delegated? Is the person just to the other side of that line of no value at all? Do you see what a ridiculous and illogical point this is? In a large hospital there are porters and what we do is essential to the workings of that institution. In very some small clincs there are no porters, especially when the patients treated tend to be mobile. In very small local surgeries, especially in remote areas, there are no nurses, just one or two doctors. Anybody using the delegation argument is either ignorant or dishonest. They are nothing but conformists who cannot bear to live in a world where HP's are proud to be HP's.

It's Not a Job

 

It's a way of life! But it's difficult to explain that. In my video about Barry dying, see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2022/10/barry-dies.html. I describe a late night argument between myself and a senior porter at the senior's house; and the worst part was that Barry joined in and took his side in a calmer and more sensitive way. The senior was always a bit of a flash Harry. I didn't dislike him, but he sometimes rubbed me up the wrong way; however, I was obviously much fonder of Barry and so therefore his criticism felt much more uncomfortable. I had assumed he would back me up and he didn't. There was another time that happened; he thought I had done the wrong thing when I made my stand in DS, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/02/delivery-suite.html; this is despite the fact that he once lost his temper with his manager in X-ray filing and swore at her, and I backed him up. As I said in the video, Barry was like a surrogate father to me, but he was not perfect. The core of Barry's and the senior's issue with me confused me. It was actually only much later, having thought it over, that I understood it. The senior and Barry wanted me to become more conventional, "just normal" to use the convention's term for itself. Barry always said that one day he would have a "serious talk!" with me; it was when we went on our planned camping trip to Ireland in 1997. This "talk" never happened.
 
You might wonder how this is relevant, well I shall explain. Hospital portering is not a job, it's a way of life. It is something you are, not something you do. Every HP knows this deep down, but few will admit it. To admit it means going against convention because HPing is conventionally portrayed as so different, something you are simply not allowed to have those feelings for. To go against convention is extremely difficult. I've noticed that if you steal somebody's car or have an affair with their girlfriend they will respond with less hostility than they would when you make a comment that questions convention; and facing hostility from most of the people around you is very tough. As Septimius Severus said: "Most men would rather face an army than the scorn of their peers." Yet, paradoxically you might think, at the same time those same hostile people are unable to define convention. It is as if they are fish and it's the sea they swim in. The argument with the senior and Barry was confusing for me because they could not define precisely what it was they wanted from me. I kept repeating: "What exactly is your point?" The difference between them and most of the others is, they cared for me; Barry especially, but so did the senior in his own way. They wanted me to become what they are because it made their lives easier, but they couldn't put what they were into words; to them it was simply self-explanatory. As I've said before, there are HP's who are ashamed to admit that they're HP's, see: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2007/12/dont-tell-em-were-porters.html. Many can't even bear to tell others that they enjoy being HP's. This is really sad. If they just make the effort to stand up to convention, however hard it is at first, the rewards are extraordinary. It's a liberation like no other. The HPWA and The Gas Spanner show is all about showing you how and giving you support in your effort. Please do it!

A Stitch in Time

 

After the previous pair of angst essays it's nice to write about something cheerful for a change. There are several films called "a Stitch in Time". The phrase refer to the old mnemonic: "a stitch in time saves nine", meaning clothes mending is easier if you catch the damage early. The film I'm talking about is the 1963 Rank Organization's slapstick comedy A Stitch in Time starring Norman Wisdom. I say "starred", but in reality Norman created a genre of his own. The story follows Norman being his usual self-styled character in the form of a young butcher's apprentice. He ends up at a hospital where he meets a young girl who has been struck mute since her parents suddenly died. Being his characteristic empathic clown, Norman makes a huge effort to keep visiting her in order to care for her and heal her, resulting in the usual hilarious chaos. What is interesting is that at one point he decides to take on the job of a porter and the porters at that hospital have a very unusual transfer method. The patients are not moved on wheeled vehicles by hand; they are put on stretchers and are driven on small electric cars which the porters drive. Source: https://youtu.be/bUBBvU_ReMU?si=K4td55XODgvjkT2L&t=980. I've never heard of such a thing, especially as long ago as 1963, when the film was made. There are machines known as "bed pushers", for example: https://www.felgains.com/care-products/felgains-gz10sl-slimline-hospital-bed-and-stretcher-mover/; but they were never a thing until the 2000's and they only provided motive force to assist the porter, who was walking as usual. They were not a vehicle by definition. I remember them being abandoned by management because of their expense and inefficiency. I suspect the vehicles in the film were imaginary and invented by the production designers; because they are used for great comedic effect when Norman races one of the porters along a corridor. Of course HP's are being listed for replacement by AI's, and one of my trolls gloated over this fact, but what profession isn't in this day and age? However, as I explain in this article: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2020/08/roboporter.html, contrary to popular belief, I think HP's will be one of the most difficult professions to robotize, not the easiest.