Duty of Care

I was outside, but I was not yet out of the woods.

I was going to the hospital and, sooner or later, there were going to be some questions.

I had hoped that they would put me on a gurney and then go back to fighting the fire, but no such luck.

I swear they must be paid by the number of packages of this and that they open.

They put a mask on my face and they stuck a needle in my arm and pumped me full of Godknowswhat. After they hooked me up to a heart monitor and a pulse oximeter I stopped thinking they were practicing medicine and began thinking they were engaged in risk management.

After they had me strapped down and secured me inside the ambulance and just before they closed the doors and headed for the hospital, a police jumped into the back of the wagon and tried to ask me questions.

Couldn't blame them, really.

They had every reason to suspect arson and, because they found me on the wrong side of the door, I was going to be their number one suspect.

It was easy not to pay attention to him, I was too busy worrying about the dog and trying to figure out how I was going to get back to him.

I had a couple of coughing fits and made a couple of attempts to get out of the gurney and that was enough for the paramedic to shut the police down. Questions would have to wait, I needed medical attention.

I didn't really.

And the longer I lay there, with them pumping full of pure oxygen and flooding my system with saline, the better I felt.

Had to keep them from figuring that out.

Not much I could do in the close quarters of the ambulance. The next move would have to wait until we got to the hospital.

What to do?

I needed to figure something out and fast.

As for the dog, he would probably hang around the fire until everyone left and then he would head home.

Not a good choice, but probably the safest for him.

Whoever was hunting me would most likely have my house staked out, but they wouldn't move against the dog until they were ready to come for me, so he was probably safer there than anywhere.

He was probably hungry and a little confused. Couldn't blame him for that, also couldn't help him at the moment.

Soon though.

Soon.

The ambo lurched to a stop and then into reverse before coming to rest outside the hospital's emergency room.

The paramedics, joined by a pair of hospital orderlies, wrestled the gurney out of the wagon and began wheeling me head first through a series of doors.

BAM.

BAM.

Try as I might, I could not keep from wincing.

BAM.

I cracked my eyes open just far enough to see the policeman following along behind.

The smell of a witch's brew of disinfectants and antibiotics, vomit, urine and stale beer made me strangely nostalgic for the many hundreds of hospitals I had had the misfortune to see the inside of over the years.

Nights in the ER are the same all over the world. It's the closest modern equivalent of the marketplace. Stall after stall of independent merchants, each trying to convince a passing doctor or nurse of X-Ray tech about the worth of their wares, the severity of their malady.

And like the markets, there is always a language barrier, always misunderstandings, betrayed confidences, disappointment and yelling.

Everybody yells.

Doctors to nurses; doctors to patients; nurses to orderlies; nurses to patients; orderlies to security; orderlies to custodians; family members to patients; patients to other patients.

It was familiar.

We worked in hospitals, made moves in hospitals and, unfortunately, had to use hospitals. And whether they were First World or Third World, they have the same rhythms and, more or less, the same sounds and the same smells.

These were the places where people having their worst day ran hard into a group of people for whom it was Tuesday; people for whom you were just another barrier between them and going home.

Eventually, we stopped moving.

We pulled into what was to be my stall in this particular marketplace.

It took six of them, but they transferred me from the ambulance gurney to the hospital gurney. It was like being tackled by a football team when you didn't even know you were playing.

And then they all left. All, except the policeman.

I could hear one of the paramedics running down my vital signs for a nurse.

“Smoke Inhalation” was the presumptive diagnosis.

The nurse asked about I.D. and then I heard someone say “John Doe.”

The clock started ticking again.

I needed to get out of there before they figured out who I was.  If my I.D. found its way back to me, anyone looking for me would not be far behind.

I heard the nurse say something in an indiscreet voice about “Indigent Care” and someone else, outside the curtain said something about how that was all they needed and why didn't “those” people have the common courtesy to show up on the next person's shift so she could get home in time to be with her kids.

The cop stepped out of my stall and into the conversation between the nurses.

He was under orders to keep control of the prisoner and he needed to know how long it was going to take before I would be evaluated so he could report.

There was a long sigh followed by one of the nurses explaining to the police that so long as I was stable, I was not a priority. The hospital had a “Duty of Care” but that was all I was going to get unless, or until, someone could produce some kind of proof of “in-surance.”

She actually said “in-surance.”

And then I heard the policeman sigh.

He said something about having to report in and he “deputized” the nurse to watch me while he went to make a call.

She assured the police that she would stay put until he returned.

I heard the squeak of his leather belt and the jingle of keys fade out as he made his way down the hall and then, after a pause, I heard the nurse sigh as she too walked away.

Now was the time.

I had to get out of this bed.