Hippocratic Oath

“Whatever is going on here? It’s Thanksgiving, everybody’s supposed to be at home doing happy family stuff. It’s like the entire town has gone mad. The ER is teaming with a bunch of hot-headed lunatics. A young fella, pale as a ghost, towels wrapped around his pumping wrists, shouting his head off  Leave me alone ye bunch of interfering fuckers, just let me die. Another looner out of his head, totally wasted, what’s his story? And there’s this beautiful girl, all alone. Oh God she looks sick.  How can she ever recover down there amongst those wasters. She might have been better off staying at home. She is sitting on her trolley, screens half pulled around her. I wonder what is she thinking? Her eyes are darting from trolley bay to trolley bay. She looks scared. Guaranteed she won’t get a wink of sleep to-night. That’s for sure. 

Those intern doctors fresh out of college, whizzing around like blue arse flies, they haven’t a clue, buzzing around with note pads and biros, asking stupid questions to a bunch of loo-lahs, pretending to take notes. Their shiny new stethoscope giving them an air of authority. Sure, they haven’t a rat's ass, how could they? Fresh out of college, zilcho experience of the big bad world. If you ask me, they’ re far too sheltered in there in that university, too molly coddled.”

“Roly, it’s time you got up off your big fat arse and got down to ER and be of some use. You have been sitting there since the start of shift starring at that CCTV mumbling to yourself. Get moving man. This is not a holiday camp,” shouted Roseanne his supervisor.

“Yes Mam, you got it, I am on my way.”

“And no dawdling at the Coke machine, you mind.”

“As if…..”

“Yea, as if…Just try passing it, without stopping to grab a Coke. Grab water instead, much better for you.”

“I know, I know Roseanne. One of these days I‘ll surprise you all and swan in here, slim and trim and bounding with energy.”

“That will be the day! Stay in the present moment Mr R and get that ass of yours down there, NOW. Things are getting out of hand. They need all the help they can get, good or otherwise.” 

“Okay, okay cool those jets of yours, I’m on it. I want to see how that poor girl is doing. She looks so alone and vulnerable down there in the middle of all the vermin.”

“Mind how you go now, Mister, no judgement calls, no favourites. Stick to the job description.”

Roly liked Roseanne, but sometimes she could be a nag. She would never let anything go. Always reminding him who was boss. 

He made his way down the back stairs and through the security corridor to the ER.

As he entered he could see that it was bedlam there. Since he left the CCTV a group of young people overdosed on some weird drug had been admitted. There was pandemonium. Emergency bells ringing, cardiac arrest alerts bleeping, the looner on the trolley shouting 

“let me out of this mad house” and the young girl peeping from behind the screens, as pale as snow, probably terrified out of her wits. Roly had an urge to go in behind the screens and cradle her in his arms. 

What was coming over him, he wondered, this was not his usual hardened self. He was acting way out of character. Could it be this male menopause that Roseanne was on about? Never, real men didn’t go through a menopause, that was only for cissy boys, like Tommy the desk clerk, not for strong macho types like Roly. 

“Good night there, Tommy boy, crazy night out there in that big bad world.”

“You bet Sir, it one hell of a night in this dungeon of iniquity. I can’t take much more of it.”

“Well, you are here to stay my boy cos you’ve been saying that ever since you started working here ten years ago and you are still here.”

“So, what’s the scoop tonight? Who needs watching? Who needs protection?”

“See that young lady over there, would you mind just sitting with her for a while. She is really scared with all that’s going on and maybe your presence would make her less nervous.”

Roly didn’t even reply, he scanned the white board for her name and details, Charlene aged 24 from out of town, admitted with abdominal pain and vomiting. Bounding over before Tommy could change his mind, he grabbed a chair on route before politely asking Charlene, if he could talk to her in private.

“Private? Where is private in this chaos?”

“Well, you are right, the only privacy here is behind the screens. Can I come in and sit for a while?”

“Yes, yes, please do, Charlene responded, fearing that this big burly man might be called away any minute to control the crazy people that seemed to have taken over the ER.

“Here, there’s space by the trolley” she offered eagerly.

Roly took his seat and sat by the head of the trolley. He could see fear and exhaustion on the girl’s pale face. Her skin reminded him of porcelain china and her almond blue eyes were sunken in her head. He wondered if any of those good- for- nothing interns had laid an eye on her.

“Can you tell me what is happening? Can I get anything for pain? Anything to stop the vomiting?”  She asked as she retched into a disposable receiver beside her.

Roly felt so helpless. He was no medic; he was just here to protect her from the craziness outside the screens.

“You just rest there, close your eyes and try to blot out the madness. I’ll get one of these young fellas here to come in and see to you.”

“Please do, as I need to get home as soon as possible for Thanksgiving.”

“My guess is honey, that you will be going nowhere tonight. You are much too ill to be leaving hospital.”

 With that a man came charging into the cubicle, knocking Roly to one side.

“What’s going on here Charlene? What are you doing in here? I told you never go to the ER, that I would get a private doctor to visit you at home. You know it’s Thanksgiving and we’re all waiting at home for you to join us.”

Charlen’s eyes opened and closed. 

“Can you not see Sir that your lady here is sick. She needs to see a doctor. My guess is that you will have to have Thanksgiving without Charlene for this year.”

“So that’s your guess now, is it? Well, if you got one of your stupid lazy ass doctors to see my lady wife, we could pack up and be on our way. So you just do that now, as quick as your oversized ass will carry you. You understand?”

“Jesus! What has got into everyone, here tonight, they are all high on some peculiar drug or drink or maybe it’s those magic mushrooms for sale down at the market in the middle of all the fruit and vegetables harvested for Thanksgiving? Whatever the hell it is, it sure has brought out the worst in every good-for-nothing in town” mumbled Roly to himself.

He could hear arguing from inside the screens, voices raised. Charlene pleading with this oaf of hers to please be quiet. He shouting back, why the hell should he be quiet when everybody else in this goddamn ER is raising havoc except her.

“You are making no effort to get a doctor to look at you, give you medication and let us be on or way.”  

“Josh, do you not get it? Do you not see how weak I am? I haven’t got the energy to raise my voice let alone get a doctor to see me.”

“Well then get this overgrown security guard friend of yours to do something cos I ain’t hanging around here all night.”

“Hey you, Mr security guard, can you make yourself useful and get a doctor to see my wife and let us out of here?” roared Josh from behind the screens.

Roly could feel his temper rising. He could be pushed so far but this was it. He was taking no more crap from that total waster married to that beautiful girl. How did she end up with that loser? What got into people when they fall in love? They must lose sight of reality.

“Okay big fella, out of here NOW.” Roly confronted Josh from behind the screens.

“I’m going nowhere until you get my wife here seen to. Now move it, fat ass.”

With that, Josh swung to the right, landing his fist on Josh’s face. He could feel a bone crack. 

Oh, Jesus he thought, his cheek bone’s gone. With that Josh reels forward to punch Roly. Roly ducks, Josh’s fist lands on the screen and he falls over, crashing onto the floor. 

“Oh, my God what is happening?” whispered Charlene.

“You should not have done that Mister. You don’t know my husband. He can be mean and rough. When his temper is riled there is no stopping him.

Roly gathered himself together came over to the trolley and before Charlene knew what was happening, he gathered her up in his arms, carried her into the elevator and up to the first floor of the hospital.

“Where to now?  he thought as he scrambled along the corridor frantically looking for an empty room. 

“If there is a God there, please, please let me find one,” whispered Josh.

“Now where the hell are you going Mr Security guard, Sir. Don’t you think you are a bit out of your comfort zone here? 

Josh could hear Roseanne’s voice coming from behind him. He spotted an open door. There is a God he thought. The bed was empty and did not look slept in.

“In here, my precious, you will be safe.”

 Roly pulled back the covers and lay Charlene as gently as he could on the bed.

“Rest here, I will get a doctor to see you.”

Charlene’s eyes filled with tears as she began to sob

“You cannot help me, if my husband finds out he could kill you. You have to go, don’t let him see you here, please just leave now.”

“Now this is a right mess you have got us into Mr Roly. How do you propose to get out of this one? First you beat a guy senseless down in the ER, then you kidnap his wife and bring her up to a private bed without any medical assessment being carried out. What were you thinking? You know if anything happens to this lady, you, me, the entire hospital will be sued. We’ll probably be sued anyway if that husband of hers doesn’t recover. What has got into you? You are getting all soft like putty.  Where is the macho Roly we used to know? He better come back cos soft and fuzzy do not go with being a security guard in this hospital.”

Roly wished Roseanne would just shut up. She loved to go on and on. He knew he had acted out of line. He couldn’t explain what had come over him. There was something about this girl Charlene. From the moment he laid eyes on her on the CCTV camera he could feel his heart lurch with something he didn’t recognise. Was it pain or what? Were his arteries clogging up from his high cholesterol, that Roseanne delighted in telling him would be the death of him or was it something else? Something he had longed so much for but never had. Why should he really care about this woman more than any other? How many sad situations had he witnessed over the years down in the ER and throughout the hospital? How many vulnerable women had he been called to protect having been badly beaten and abused by their so-called partners, husbands, significant others? The people who were supposed to love and protect them. What a joke.

“Roly, you better get out of here and get your ass back down to your CCTV before there’s more trouble. That guy down there is coming around and being seen by the team. They say he’ll need surgery, an arterial bleed.”

“Well, you know what Roseanne, I hope to hell he dies on the table. He deserves nothing better, not even the time and effort those medics are going to put into revive him”

“Now, Roly, that is not for you to decide. You know they are bound by the Hippocratic Oath.”

“Hippocratic oath my ass. Pity all men weren’t bound by it.”

“It’s an unwritten rule for all mankind Roly, only some choose not to live by it.”