Weight of the world

It would seem that weight issues are never far from the news headlines. If it isn't because of the Size 0 debate, it's because of NHS Trusts refusing to treat morbidly obese people until they at least start to help themselves. But at the front line, as always, are ambulance crews. A call came in to a 50ish year-old gentleman, who was having "breathing difficulties". As is often the case, the breathing difficulties were nothing more than stomach ache and constipation. Easy. Patient walks on the ambulance, has his BP checked, walks off the other end, and then becomes the hospital's problem. But half way to the call an update comes down the MDT and says "PATIENT WEIGHS 22 STONE". In the grand scheme of things, 22 stone isn't terrible, so we thought we would cope. Especially as it was a Category A call, and assumed that there would be an FRU (which there was) on scene. All good, except for one slight problem. Patients, with all the best intentions in the world, lie. 22 stone was what this patient may have weighed once. Not today, though. It was probably nearer 30. And his mobility, as you can imagine, with that weight, wasn't great. We managed to get him onto his feet, but after a few steps, he threw himself down on the ground and refused to try to get up. Or maybe he couldn't. Don't know. But, we had to work out how to get this gentleman out the house and into hospital, which is where he kept saying he wanted to be.
We asked for the fire brigade to come out, but apparently they're not allowed to help us carry patient unless it involves an immediately life threatening problem. This is just in case they hurt themselves. Health and safety. Apparently. So at 1:30 in the morning, when ambulances are scarce as it is, we had to get another ambulance and an officer down with specialist equipment to help lift the patient onto our trolley bed.
All in all, this call took over 90 minutes. Can't help wondering if we wouldn't have been better use to someone who actually wanted help, but more than that. Someone who actually wanted to help themselves, too.

Slow news week

Not a great deal to report. Just thought that in the meantime I'd share with you the hazards of driving when you're tired. Red truck driver fell asleep at the wheel. More by luck than judgement - 3 injured, none too serious. As we came round the bend (we were, as usual, given the wrong location by the police...) looking for this crash, the first thing we saw was the red truck. To say that we were slightly concerned for the welfare of the occupant is a slight understatement.