Laughter isn’t the best medicine, but it’s all that’s available, so the doctors, nurses, cleaners, and consultants are all wearing fright wigs and red noses as they walk the flickering corridors. I used to be a cardiologist, but my heart wasn’t in it, says a tired young woman with a clipboard and pens. Dogs can’t operate an MRI machine, says another, but CAT-scan. Everywhere, sides are splitting, but every needle’s blunt, every thread is snapping, and the only way anyone will draw blood will be with the blotchy red marker that’s leaking in someone’s pocket. The X-ray Dept’s down to a skeleton staff and everyone’s worked to the bone. Meanwhile, trolleys line up from A&E to the main exit, then down the street, past the closed library and the shuttered Post Office, and into the railway station, where no one’s keeping track anymore. I’d like to help you, says a young man with a trail of tears painted down his cheek, but I’m just a trainee. A patient in-patient pisses himself. Is this some kind of sick joke? We laugh until we stop.
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Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor
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