Commercial Road just as a chopper landed on the helipad overpass. Within minutes a medical crew lifted a stretcher out of the cabin and wheeled the patient towards the trauma unit. The sight aroused memories of my own stay here more than a year ago, when the shooting had almost cost me my life. Fortunately I had no memory of either the frantic attempts to resuscitate me or the early treatment of my injuries. All I recalled was being holed up in a bed on the fourth floor.
I looked up at the enormous building and pinpointed the window that had been my only connection to the outside world for what had seemed like a lifetime, though in reality had been little more than three weeks. Walking up the path towards the main sliding doors, I passed the smokers’ huts, then entered the emergency department where I was immediately overcome by the sense of unease that gripped me any time I was in a hospital.
Even before the shooting, I’d always hated hospitals. To me they were depressing places, worse than prisons sometimes. Today was no different. People were slumped in the waiting room, some watching outdated sitcoms on a television in the corner, others asleep. The smell was not unlike the morgue, a smell I always associated with sickness and human anguish. Then there was the sound of the machines: the PA system, the generators, the never-ending hum of the fluorescent lights. It was like being trapped in a bunker.
At the triage desk, a tradesman with his hand wrapped in a bloody towel demanded to know why it was taking so long to see a doctor.
‘Sir, our team is stretched to the limit,’ said a nurse I recognised, a friend of Ella’s. ‘Your injury isn’t life threatening and we need to –’
‘Not life threatening?’ said the tradesman, unwrapping the towel and causing a thick pool of blood to run down his elbow and spill on the desk. ‘I could bleed to death out here.’
‘If you keep pressure on it, like I told you to, you won’t lose any more blood. Please be patient. We’ve just had three more firemen brought in from the bushfires. Their injuries are much more serious than yours.’
‘That’d be right. Take care of your own.’ The tradey leant over the counter and kicked the panelling. ‘I’ve waited three fuckin’ hours out here and all you’ve done is stand there yakkin’ to ya bloody friends.’
‘There’s no need to swear or get aggro. Security!’
A hulking security guard with a face like a cane toad stalked over and the tradey got the message, grumbling to himself as he sat back down. Having been married to a nurse, I knew the tradey had just cost himself at least another hour in the waiting room. I waited while the nurse slid on gloves and wiped up the blood from the desk. After tossing the waste in a medical bin, she looked up, probably expecting another angry patient.
‘Now what can I do for . . . Rubens, hi!’
‘Hey Jen, expecting someone else?’
‘Rough one today,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘The fires have thrown the whole place right off. My partner’s up there with them on relief duty. I feel like I’ve sent him off to war.’
I nodded, sympathetic.
‘I take it you’re looking for El?’
‘Yeah, I know it’s crazy in there today, but if you could just see if she can pop her head out. I’ll only take a few minutes.’
‘Few minutes, huh?’ She smiled wryly. ‘That’s all men ever need.’
I laughed as Jen swept through the doors into the emergency department. Drama in real emergency departments was never as chaotic as depicted on television. Ella often said you could be lying in a bed and a person in the next cubicle could die and you probably wouldn’t even know. In her experience, there was rarely any yelling or screaming, and it wasn’t often you saw patients being rushed through the room on gurneys. You sure as shit didn’t see doctors or nurses break down when a life was lost.
Ella came out carrying a clipboard, a stethoscope around her neck. Pinned to her uniform pocket was her ID, photo looking nothing like her. She walked to the side of the triage counter and I followed.
‘You’re a tad early,’ she whispered, smiling but flustered. ‘We’re not supposed to meet until seven.’
‘Yeah, I was passing by the hospital and thought I’d see if you had time for a quick lunch.’