It takes all sorts (1975)

that's all Hospital broadcasting for tonight we hope you've enjoyed our programs and that you'll join us again tomorrow we are we open as usual at 7 o'clock and among tomorrow in these programs is a request line don't forget if you'd like a request our telephone number is on the walls of old award hello so postcards in the ward Notaro dress off and now from all of us here to all of you a very good good night there are no eight-hour days as far as caring is concerned there is always someone to watch over the sick and injured someone to clean someone to cook someone to keep the lights burning someone to comfort someone to care 1 am a familiar sight and sound this is an RTA road traffic accident the accident and emergency department prepare to receive another casualty Harold Bennett on his way home after a night shift has been hit by a car that's when the Health Service takes over day or night it makes no difference at moments like this a man is badly injured he needs surgery the next few hours in Harold Bennett's life are critical for everyone else it's a job of work and that doesn't mean just the medical and nursing staff these are only the frontline services there is so much more to this organization probably the most immediately apparent aspect of the backup services are those provided by the laboratory backup services and the radiology backup services further back than that there is an echelon of maintenance personnel electronic electrical primarily I suppose and behind that still the enormous amount of organizational services which are required to see that the right things and the right people appear in the right places at the right times a hospital is people a whole town of people they all work together but may never come into close contact yet one service and one department is often so dependent on another housing 704 on 374 what is routine in the daily life of a large General Hospital can be an unwanted and painful experience to those who need help and comfort they see doctors and nurses people in starched white coats and trolleys being pushed down long corridors they don't understand or appreciate that this is the shop window or frontline of a service that deals every day in emergencies broken your collarbone hello what's been happening to you then you said I was on your shoulder when did you do that yesterday good public relations I think has begun to play a very considerable part in drawing together the various frontline medical personnel and in particular their own immediate backup organizations like the bricks fell out today when I was sick in the run he slips on the rung of the ladder and you fill all the way down to the bottom so how far did you fall a hospital is exactly the same as a bastion for an aircraft carrier in size and complexity and it needs exactly the same sort of backup services now let me take a picture will ask you to breathe in there are well over a hundred different jobs within the Health Authority organization and many of those are concerned with the day-to-day running of a General Hospital yet not everyone finds it necessary to visit the wards and make contact with patients but that does not diminish the role they play or the contribution they make to this town within a town the grim evidence of one man's accident is a sharp reminder that all the resources and skill of a modern hospital are there to help each and every individual when it matters most at all levels the work goes on not just in the operating department but also far away from such familiar frontline situations Thank You inevitably Harold Bennett will become a statistic a name in a folder unknown by those who punch out the details of age and family background for the benefit of hungry computers but that is how far the backup services stretch Computers can streamline the system but how can a machine know when or how to order more oxygen cylinders or new sheets and curtains like it or not paperwork is essential to this organization yet administration despite a necessary emphasis on figures and Finance does reach out and touch the man and woman in a hospital bed listen to Julie young I'm a ward clerk and it involves helping the sister and I answer to her for my duties whilst on the ward it can be involved with knitting patients or the paperwork and making sure that they have their wrist tags on with their name and identity and age general administration work of handing out the menus and helping the elderly maybe choose their menu for the following day and cheer tomorrow's lunch yeah you know what it's brown beef stew and dumplings we're going to talk about dumplings yesterday won't wait you don't have that tomorrow yeah fine you're there for the patient's concerned to make sure that you can give them a cheery good morning and perhaps help their day on and just a friendly word in general I think helps them and make yourself a sandwich tomorrow's menu is always a good topic of bedside conversation but for catering manager Keith Ledbetter it's much more than that likes and dislikes matter yet so do the medical needs of patients who have to have a special daily diet take into account the diets this is the backbone work before it actually gets to the patient before we introduce a menu varying people see the menu and go through Alex of course the dietitians brought in here when in fact he goes to the patient it's probably the result of five months work to produce that menu the other one that we've got a lady who is a diabetic but she's been having reactions in the evening to increase the diet amazing Keith Ledbetter is the man with the money yet how did you balance out such an enormous shopping list it is one of the most difficult planning problems for any catering manager 250-pound well they couldn't take 250 a little bit of moving around 200 okay 200 by Friday yeah okay I guess and then we'll take two he has to try and foresee the possible price of food well ahead it's not easy just as direct patient contact is a problem for him the face is big I couldn't possibly see every patient as a catering manager but the team I have under me do a regular visit of certain wars and we may not see every patient but should the situation arise then a member of my immediate team under the catering management side it would guarantee that individual patients as we leave with the staff as well we're not hidden away in the background and I sort of only appear at Christmas I don't think they they know what makes up our department I think a lot of people still expect lunch at 12 o'clock with no concept of how the lunch becomes the lunch on the ward and in this way know they don't know enough about each other's department within a large complex like this one we're feeding in fact far more staff than we do patience patience is about 700 staff we feed at lunch time just over the thousand they're keeping a hospital clean is not a haphazard job the domestic services staff have to fit in with daily routine has the responsibility of organizing it after I left college I didn't really know what I wanted to do and I've got to know the domestic manager at the hospital in Bournemouth and she offered me a job as a supervisor and I worked there for three months and then I went on the national training scheme for domestic managers I would say the first phone contact with the patient it's a domestic on the ward because they are dealing with them nearly all the time are giving them their key their meals talking to them when they're working from a desk Charlotte eNOS keeps in close touch with the various wards through her supervisors the aim of all of them is to keep the hospital [ __ ] and span concerned and one of the nursing officers and I'd like you know to have day level together and you dawn to have F level together it doesn't affect you as we try to get across to everybody outside the hospital but it's not a mrs. mock type of job anymore it's a highly technical job under Sisson I think it's improving with the general public but I don't think it's appreciated maybe there's well if an S yourself appreciate the type of job we do if everyone curtains change you've just got to yell well that's interesting the department inside or outside the hospital that can afford to isolate itself from the day to day routine domestic staff working alongside the medical staff are a good example it is this close cooperation which ensures that the Health Service machinery runs smoothly they're a self-contained world they self-supporting where I'm self-sufficient it hangs together like a cohesive whole really you've got an atmosphere any time to a building you feel it's a hospital I think with any job that involves daily contact with patients who are ill and to some extent not themselves I'm feeling sorry for themselves and very vulnerable is their patience and considerable degree of understanding trying to understand how they feel and have all patients because she wasn't even ever rise if they're angry with you and you've always got to be willing to lend a hand when they're crying or you know generally miserable I think that above all this is the country you need in the island became a hospital porter with just those qualifications it's a job which means much more than just pulling a trolley from one end of a corridor to another I enjoy because of the daily contact with people who who you feel you can help in some way but that daily contact is denied to those in the backup services who are well away from the patient's bedside yet no matter how remote they may seem many backup departments must be organized efficiently to keep the hospital routine taking over after all washing and ironing a hundred thousand pieces of laundry each week must be a business and not a chore from that second the most people working in a hospital means becoming a nurse or a doctor but this isn't so anymore the horizons are wider and more varied than that it's possible now with the reorganized setup that you come into the hospital as an engineering class one or as an electrician you could finish up there's no reason why you shouldn't finish up as chief engineer for the Department of Health there's that sort of career prospects that brick won't have it might need a bit of attention around the edges there on the coil it's a bit broken away we might have to do something with that but otherwise it looks fairly clean I think it means more the ultimate result is far greater the priorities are far different than for example in our engineering industry the patient is the end product so this leap rather than bounce a load of tin cans that you might be churning out of you're in a factory so in that respect certainly there's a a greater priority being a hospital engineer than one in industry today nuclear medicine has extended the boundaries of treatment yet the skill and experience of each individual is always a key factor take pathology for example where part of the work is psychology for search for telltale cancer smears maybe only half a dozen slides in a thousand are likely to show them but each deserves close scrutiny machines can do many things but they're electing pills or mixing up the medicine must remain in the hands of pharmacists they are trained to decipher the requirements of all Hospital departments every day the orders have to be examined so that stocks on the wards can be replenished and eventually the patient can receive the daily dosage prescribed to him by the doctor he gets the tablets and takes it all for granted another example of the unseen backup and if the medicine doesn't have the right effect and a little friendly persuasion might just do the job try point your turns right down and now bend your foot right up hold it do it again hold it there I'm trying get it up a bit more take over where the surgeons leave off their association with patients can sometimes be a long and painful relationship Jackie Gardner is a senior physiotherapist dealing with those who've had neurosurgery with Moira Carroll they're encouraging patients to take the first faltering steps back to a normal life go to the tripod laughs you go nice possibility in the hospital is mainly to rehabilitate patients um after they've had operations in my particular part of physiotherapy um get them well enough to be able to cope with trip themselves at home slowly and you're going to walk into that frame they tend to be frightened of us first of all because they're not sure what we're going to do with them and everything is active between us now no no you go that's it down when the patient turns around to you and says thank you for you've done you've got me home I feel something every time they come up and see the doctor which is every three months six months here we pop in and say hello that won't keep them right down that way not too much medical advancement means space a lot of it new departments and more sophisticated equipment the backup is there too with specialist architects leading the design team as part of about this area is that one for pediatric may have to go and if it does we should spend the treatment reorganization is meant to bringing together of all the facets of community healthcare the district General Hospital plays a major role but it is only one part of the health service there's also the family doctor service outpatient clinics maternity services and teams involved in psychiatry preventative medicine and rehabilitation inside and outside the hospital it's an ever-widening service all in the cause of patient care despite its size the hospital still has a heart it's people that matter there is now a stronger link with those organizations outside the hospital's social workers now make regular contacts with those patients who may still need advice and help when they return home anyway we can help you sort things out when the time comes to go home really how often does your granddaughter get does your daughter get over to see not once a week come here yeah that's awell course I should be on my own in at night it is difficult to remain detached and not get involved with more the elderly patients that don't have visitors you feel that you'd like to do something extra for them you need to think having somebody to come in and give you a hand that's want to try something else right how's your probably don't you need a challenge I'm feeling lobster you do go home and think about them there's no saying you don't because you do you can't go out of here and just cut yourself off completely we do think about the patients back at the hospital if you did meet what I don't think he would be doing your job properly you wouldn't be getting that that involvement that perhaps makes you perhaps a better worker I think maybe from staff nurse Junior Richards who is very sorry to have left the ward and sends her warmest wishes to you all and Julie has opted to play this record for you I get great job satisfaction from working with such a great crowd of people the end product if you like to call it that is the patient that is far more important than any piece of machinery I've been in the health stories 10 years if I hadn't found job satisfaction I would have left I like Hospital atmosphere I like being with a number of people with people from different walks of life people with different interests Harold Bennett is a statistic an end product but in this town within a town people are the priority and for every patient the backup is all too often unknown and unseen accountant architect audit Clark catering supervisor dietician domestic cleaner electrician engineer I've never really thought about the Health Service like that but it takes all sorts