Voices from the emergency room

Across the hall:

Inaudible. Angry.

"Look! You can't talk to the staff like that!"

Inaudible. Still angry, angry and gruff.

"Look sir, I told you. We've given you your drugs, and that's it. You can't have any more."

"Well I shou... should! I'm in here, an'... an'... aleast I'm not out there! I came here!"

"But you can't talk like that here! You're abusing the staff!"


This nurse is getting loud now. It's night shift and all the nurses are men.

"Whul, all I said was f---!"

"You can't say that to the staff!"

"Well scheeez, Imen pain! Imen in here... Imen in here... I juss sed I's in f---'in pain! Thass all I sed!"

"WE GAVE YOU CODEINE. NOW YOU DON'T GET ANYMORE. IF YOU CONTINUE, YOU'RE OUT ON THE STREET, UNDERSTAND?"

"Iz not henuff! C'mon!"

"You get what you got."

"C'monnnnnn!"

"I'm leaving. If there's any more abuse to the staff, I'm calling security."

The nurse stalks off, grumbling to other staff.

Eventually he relents, the guy gets his codeine. Keep the peace, I suppose.




From under the curtain to my right:

"So you're having heart problems?"

Prim, old lady. Proper British accent. Timid, frustrated, tired, unsure, doesn't want to impose.

"Yes, oh yes, sometimes it gets very tight.. right here."

"Alright, you have previous history of angina?"

"Oh, yes dear."

"Any other symptoms that accompany the chest pain?"

"Well, occasionally, I get a bit of a cough. But it's a silly cough."

Silly cough? I think.

Yeah, we treat that with hilarium.



From under the curtain, later, a lady expounds her tale of woe.

It's a polymorphous account, editing and mutating to extract sympathy from the various doctors and nurses who visit. After spinning her sixth tale, she breaks out the coup de grace to a young doctor who doesn't seem to be buying it:

"But I'm coughing up stuff! GREEN STUFF!"

The doctor parlays back, brilliantly:

"You smoke, right?"


This is what I listen to from midnight to three in the morning.

These are the people filling our emergency rooms.