My Falkland's Story Part 5, Bedpans & Sluiceroom Technicians

[Simon Bolivar]

Part 5: Bedpans & Sluice room Technicians
>>With apologies to those faint of heart or those currently enjoying the ethereal pleasure of a fine Havana; you might want to skip this episode on ‘back to basics nursing skills.’ I'll be sure to return lighter side in the next.

>>The RN of the early 80’s was awash with slogans. At least since ’76, the RN had advertised in the newspapers for trades requiring volunteers & had a pic showing the exciting life ahead. In ’78, for the first & only yr, they actually advertised for Medical Assistants. They had an acute shortage & when I joined up we were the only Class to go through Raleigh when all 30 of us, were baby medics.

One of the slogans used in the papers at this time & on stickers that could be found in messes for yrs to come: ‘Dive Navy, Sail Navy, Fly Navy’. Which Jack adapted to: ‘Fly Navy, Sail Army, Walk sideways’ Anyone remember/guess the meaning of that one?
The unofficial motto however, found printed on T Shirts:
‘Join the Army, travel the world, meet new people & kill them.
Join the RAF, fly over the world, see new countries & bomb them.
Join the RN, sail to distant countries & catch exotic & embarrassing diseases’.

Which I think sums up the basic motivation for the majority of young lads joining the RN in the 70’s – Sex. In a service that hadn’t seen action since Aden & before the advent of mass cheap foreign hols, 18-30’s style drunken orgies, all Jack the lad wanted was to escape his humdrum life in dull & dreary 70’s Britain & seek the verdant pastures of Honky Fid, Singers, & Rio. We were all taught in training to prepare for a nuclear WWIII, which was likely to be over in 48hrs & leave total devastation so frankly wasn’t worth losing sleep over. The last foreign escapade the British entered into was the Suez Crisis, in which my father served (RAF – but we never talked about it), and we all know how that fiasco ended (younger members check out Wikipedia), when the Yanks refused to back us.

>>So as we left Gib Harbour walls, the following message was received from MOIC (Medical Officer in charge) RNH: ‘Heal Navy - You Look Beautiful - Wish we were there.’ Part of Naval tradition is for senior officers to come up with short, sweet, pithy signals; must be an interesting course. Hence forth ‘Heal Navy’ became our official motto.

>>Once we were stood down from Procedure Alpha, we went below, stared at all the stores & had a collective sigh. There was just so much of it to sort out. Then some Doris piped up, ‘has anyone seen the Bedpans & urinals?’ Nobody had so as we carried stores from cabin to theatre & between decks, we kept our eye out for them. It was probably a week before an excited young nurse rushed in waving a bedpan & urinal above her head. ‘Found them!’ Slightly amused, a Sister asked how many there were. By now we had opened nearly every crate & it was difficult to imagine where these bulky items were hidden. The nurse looked bemused, ‘um sorry Sister but this is the bedpan & urinal.’
Happy days; they had sent us off with 90 tons of stores, to prepare for a modern battle & subsequent casualties, without hundreds of the most simple yet essential items of nursing equipment. To amuse us more they were both of the papier-m?ch? variety. These are meant to be single use, to be disposed of in a steam sluice & certainly wouldn’t stand up to re-use.

>>In ’78, I had already been nursing for three yrs & was therefore not surprised by my first task on a Navy ward. After basic medical training we were seconded to a ward (my first was Ortho) & introduced to the Sluice room. This was to be our domain & where we spent most of our day. Although I am sure papier-m?ch? varieties were available in civy hospitals, they were obviously more costly & the RN still favoured Steel bedpans (you knew if you had upset the staff if they didn’t warm it before sliding it under your arse!) & glass urinals. Can you imagine today, asking a degree training nurse to scrub out a steel bend pan & clean glass urinal? We were expected to have them spotless & they were inspected every week. The glass urinals were washed in the sluice with hot water but once a month the baby medic/nurses job was to put half a pound of lead shot into the bottle, with a little water & then shake it for all you were worth. The object was to remove the green mould that accumulated in the far corners of the bottle that couldn’t be cleaned otherwise.

>>The daily routine on the ward (which we carried out on the Uganda) was for the junior to collect a couple of milk bottle style holders, that held half a dozen bottles each, go around the ward full of empty bottles & return with full bottles. On the wards the proper thing was to cover each one with a little paper bag, which of course we didn’t have on the Uganda. Although this was a simple task, there was more to it. You were expected to note & record how much urine each patient had passed on his chart at the end of the bed. If he wasn’t able to walk to the toilet & there wasn’t a full bottle, check he was drinking sufficiently. The bottles were then taken to the sluice & the urine of each bottle tested. These days we us a magic stick with little patches of papers on, that turn different shades depending on the concentration various chemicals or cells in the urine including: Glucose, Protein, Ketones, Ph, Blood & even Specific Gravity. This takes around 30seconds. In those far off days a different tablet test had to be performed for each & SG was determined by an urimeter, a glass tube similar to the one used for beer making.

The colour of the urine is also significant & you had to record it. At the time, doctors used to favour matching it to wine so you could have a pale straw coloured chardonnay, a heavy Riesling, rose or full blown burgundy. The smell of fresh urine shouldn’t be offensive, if it is there’s a problem; get a sample off to the lab for culture. With wards of 30 patients, you didn’t get time to do much else for the first 6/12. Then the next class of sprogs would come in & you would gladly hand over to them.

>>There’s a lot you can learn about a patient’s condition by his urine & a lot about the training of your medic; in what they notice & what they miss. We had a very old pathologist come to our classroom & taught us how they used to test for glucosurea (sugar). Come fwd young man & watch me closely. Some poor sap was pushed fwd & stood by the old boy. I mean how tricky can it be? The pathologist said that before tablets they used to taste the routine to see if it tasted sweet! Collective gag around the room. ‘Oh it’s not so bad’ said the pathologist & dipped his finger in the urine flask & then sucked on it. ‘Hmmm, from one of our diabetics I should think’. Everyone gagging even more. ‘Now you try laddie’, he said with that evil glint that came from knowing this was a trick he could surely never get away with in a civy hospital. In the RN however orders are orders & this young lad, encouraged by everyone else who were just glad to not be that fool, he dipped his finger & then stuck it in his mouth. Yuck, it was written all over his face. ‘Well did it taste sweet to you lad’, spitting & spluttering ‘No Sir!’ ‘And this class is why you should train hard to be accurate observers, I dipped my index finger in the urine but put my middle finger into my mouth. Now time to wash our hands’.

>> At Ascension Island they finally sent out boxes of papier-m?ch? bedpans & bottles. A small item but facing what was to come without them would have had Flo Nightingale reaching for a bucket!

[bfg84]

'you should train hard to be accurate observers, I dipped my index finger in the urine but put my middle finger into my mouth. Now time to wash our hands’.


lol

[Eddie]

I thought this was an urban myth told to us first year medical student... I'm glad you saw it first hand.

[Simon Bolivar]

Yep, I guess it was repeated many times at various different places over the yrs. Like I said, I couldn't see anyone getting away with that by then in a civy training hospital but Pusser was at least 20-30 yrs behind. It wouldn't work if they tried it with everyclass as you'd probably hear about it before you saw it. I suspect it was this ol' boys part piece & he was dragged out of the lab on occasion to amuse our normal training officers.
I am sure the story works either way, I know I never forget the lesson & I for once wasn't the sucker in the story; I guess you just had to hear it to learn & remember the same point.

[bigbarneyhotdog]

Your not taking the pi55 are you Simon?

[CaptainQuintero]

lol I was told that story at medical school also, but this was in regard to cadavers, and in my version the glass of urine was the recently deceased arsehole

[Simon Bolivar]

Yuk! Captain! Taking the Pi55 Barney? Well I know we had the lecture; one of the class was called up & the events unfurled. Over the years I have related this story many times, including with others from my class who re-enforced it. Any good lecture is a piece of theatre, did we actually see what we thought we saw or did we just see what the pathologist wanted us to see as he told the story? Knowing how naive & young (most were just 16yo) our class were & knowing far worse things happened during my time in the RN, I still think it's plausable but I will concide on reflection that it's possible we were taken in & have just helped perpetute a myth.
Anyway time to lighten things up - alot. Next port of call Freetown.

[Bigboned]

In still amazed at your level of detail Si, I know I can hardly remember details and in fairness alot of my time overseas is blank. Wonder if that means something.....