Up at Homerton Hospital, Hackney they never said that in the brochure. Breakfast comes onto hospital wards early but who knows what time because those yellow lights in the ceilings take away all sense of reality. Let’s say 6am. A patient gets used to a tubby Yardie type schlepping into the ward pushing the trolley bedecked with plastic milk flagons and the typical green crockery. You then get the customer service works: “What you want, darlin’? You want toast? One or two? Butter or margerine?” THOSE DAYS ARE GONE!
A voice sounds into the ward “Breakfast’s ready!” The newbie looks around, watches to see if a trolley trundles in, watches the activity of any nurses around, listens for the silvery shrills of tea spoons in cups. Nothing arrives. What to do? Stomach rumbling for anything. Mmm,…hot cuppa strong tea, 2 chunky crusty toast slices drenched in spread butter and perhaps a bowl of muesli. Nah! Your neighbour, who has made no effort to recognise you as a person, gets up and with dressing gown stuck in bottom crack slippers out of the ward. She returns with a paper cup and a small bowl. You follow the same route. On a lonely unstaffed trolley there is no toast , no margerine and no toaster. There is a slice of thin supermarket white bread and a scraping of jam, rationed cornflakes and tea. Breakfast ain’t begun! You take sugar just to fill up.
Security is tight in Homerton: it has to be . What walks the streets can walk the wards otherwise. The nursing staff on each ward use up all their energy and aggression policing the reception area checking who is visiting which bed. Don’t play with them gals. They fierce. “You want to see your new grandchild? Oh, you’re flying back to Paris at 5pm. You can’t leave those flowers. Come back at 4pm for visiting hours. Go and come back! Yes 4pm.”
Woe betide you if you’re visiting and you were told to leave and unthinkingly threw out casually, “I’ll be going in ten minutes”.. ….Be careful. The sister’s power is such that she can halt all your visiting if you try to match her cunning.
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