On Call Saga

On-call involves being within 40min of John James private hospital from 5.30pm Friday evening until 8.30am Monday morning. Now I'd been convinced that it was an extremely easy way of earning $120 for doing nothing...my fellow colleagues had assured me in the last 18 months there were only 4 call outs. All of these were on a sunday mid morning scanning patients for deep vein thrombosis. If you did get called out it was a minimum of 3hrs double time. I bit the bullet and volunteered myself to be included in the roster for on-call.

So a few weekends ago my turn came up. Now Andy still wanted to go on the long run which was fine as long as he got a lift (leaving me with the car) and took his phone on the run so if I was called in, I'd pick him up on the way.

By Sunday I'd completely forgotten I was on call. Andy went off for his long run and while I was reading books to the girls in bed at 8.30am (trying to avoid getting up) my mobile went off!! Low and behold it was one of the obstetric doctors wanting to organise a scan. After a few dramas between my doctor and the obstetric doctor, the scan was finally confirmed, the stopwatch started ticking and panic instantly set in.

Neither myself or the girls were dressed or had had any breakfast. After calling Andy, I dressed myself, threw some clothes in a bag, grabbed a couple of bananas and jumped into the car. Halfway to Hackett where the long run starts I realised the petrol light was on so pulled into a service station only to realise it was closed! Found another which was rather busy but decided it was better to be a few minutes late than not arrive at all. Eventually got to Andy, who had cut his long run short.

Rather than get in the car Andy wanted me to leave the girls with him...and as I was way too stressed to complain, I bundled them and the bag out of the car. Drove off only to realise 100m down the street I'd forgotten my swipe card (to get into our building) was in the bag. Quick u-turn and I was finally on the way to the hospital arriving 50mins after the initial call out.

Managed to switch off the security alarm, register the patient (both things I've never done before), turn on the machines and catch my breath before the patient arrived. The patient turned out to be a colleague who is 22ish weeks pregnant with pain on her right side and the obstetric doctor wanted to rule out appendicitis. Thankfully the scan was all normal and baby fine.

I called Andy to see what he was up to. Turns out after dressing the girls, he walked to the local cafe where they had coffee, fruit toast and milkshakes for breakfast with the rest of the running gang! After that they began the 1.5km walk to Susie's house where we were originally going for lunch. I finally caught up with them about 300m from Susie's house.

Luckily the rest of the day wasn't quite so eventful as the morning and next time I'm on call I'll be a little more prepared!