Zoe: Check us out (+51)

We've been having going HOME chats people... The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed Sonny's rather bare drip stand. The TPN pump has gone, along with the morphine. Sonny's IVs have gradually been swapped for loads of tablets and we are currently having to prove we are responsible enough folks to administer them properly. It's quite simple, we have to prove we can give the right drugs at the right time. But, silly old us, spending months bouncing between different chemotherapy protocols with sack loads of hard core medication counts for nothing apparently. Oh no, no no dear, they have different standards in BMT and are quite different to the entire hospital. We are not allowed to keep the drugs in the locked drug cabinet hung on the wall in his newly refurbished room - its forbidden on BMT. So why have a cabinet on the wall then? Instead, rather gratingly, we are being tested and marked for efficiency and after a few days we'll be told if we've passed.

I've just been to ask for the tablets for the first time. It wasn't straightforward, but nothing ever is.

Hello nurse, I've come for Sonny's medicines. Ok, would you mind waiting a minute, I'm busy at the moment (fair enough, they are pretty busy all the time). Eventually, after a short search for the key involving all the nurses on the ward the cupboard is opened. Me, sorry do you mind if I have these in tablet form - these are soluble. Oh, they are not available in any other form. Yes they are, we have dispensed them before. Really? Don't worry, they'll just make his tongue fizz a bit. Oh, that doesn't sound very nice for him. Would you mind ringing pharmacy to get the correct tablet please. Dr has to be bleeped... meanwhile I spy a box of different tablets poking out which looks rather familiar (they are the box of meds I brought in to get relabelled/dispose of safely. There might be some in that box down there, those all look like the medicines I brought in. After a good rummage I find the tablets I'm looking for. Surely a point to me. The morphine tablets needs to be counted in and out of the box and signed for by another nurse. There are over 30 of them - he only needs a 1/4. Finally I'm satisfied all the tablets are present and correct and so is the nurse. Only, she like me doesn't quite have the right authority to give them to me so we have to wait for another nurse to be free to sign to say that this nurse has checked that I can have them to give to Sonny. Total time spent: 25 minutes. I'd better get a certificate after all this. With a ribbon on. And maybe letters after my name. Hmmmmm.