A snapshot of life on the ward.
In this snapshot, I may have guessed at the ethnicity of the workers to illustrate the variety of workers involved in the management of a hospital ward.
Working between two folding plastic hazard awareness triangles, which she periodically moves to mark her progress, a young black Pakistani woman dressed entirely in black, washes the floor with a sterile headed mop. She has already cleaned the cupboard doors and notice boards etc. including the tops of the doors.
An androgynous young woman with tattoos on her neck and arms, offers cups of tea or coffee to those permitted to have one.
A young Portuguese student's eyes widen with joy as a bed becomes available for her to make. “I love making beds,” she enthuses!
In the middle of the room, two plastic sacks on a trolley are receiving the bundles of bedding an Eastern European woman has scooped up.
As she trundles the obs machine to the next bed, the cheery nurse in charge calls to the occupant of another bed, “Do you want any pain relief?”
Another nurse checks the computer monitor on the pharmacy trolley prior to the imminent drugs round.
A young man gathers up water jugs to be cleaned and refilled.
A tall Nigerian man removes used urine bottles for weighing and emptying.
Meanwhile a black African doctor leads a straggle of half a dozen students towards a bed. One of them, an Indian man, is balancing an open laptop computer. They draw the curtains around as they begin their examination of the patient.
In the end bed, the Baxter pump delivering intravenous medication, starts demanding attention by issuing a series of beeps to say the feed has been restricted again.
And as the nurse wraps the blood pressure cuff around the arm of her patient, another eastern European woman from Catering arrives and starts discussing the dietary requirements of the six of us in the ward.