Saturday was a very busy day for the Freewheelers blood bikes. Here are the details of what we did today:
East Bike: At the beginning of the day I turned down a request for our rider to deliver some drugs to a nursing home just 400yds away from the hospital. This was soon followed by an emergency delivery from the Royal United Hospital (RUH) in Bath to the neurosurgeons at Frenchay Hospital of a CD-ROM contain scans for a patient with a large intra cranial bleed. A delivery of drugs from the RUH to a nursing home outside Calne in Wiltshire. An urgent delivery of blood samples from the maternity unit in Chippenham back to the RUH pathology labs. The last job of a busy day was an urgent delivery of drugs from Weston Super Mare hospital to a patient's home in Kingswood on the east side of Bristol. NHS money saved: £190. Time on the road: 6h55m
West Bike: Three drug deliveries from Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton to the local hospice and two mental health units. An urgent collection from the Bristol Children's Hospital of a special baby milk formula for the special care baby unit at Musgrove Park. An urgent delivery of scans from Musgrove Park to the neurosurgeons at Frenchay Hospital - a call that was shared by our North bike rider who met him half way. An emergency collection of a blood sample from a mental health unit in Taunton for analysis at the pathology labs at Musgrove Park. And finally an urgent delivery of blood from Musgrove Park for cross matching at the regional blood transfusion centre at Southmead Hospital in Bristol. NHS money saved: £310. Time on the road: 9h35m!
North Bike: A delivery of medical instruments from the operating theatre at Southmead Hospital in Bristol to the theatre at Frenchay Hospital. An urgent delivery of drugs from the Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI) to Southmead Hospital. An urgent collection of notes from Frenchay Hospital and the BRI, both for the same patient, delivered to Southmead Hospital. Halfway handover from the West bike rider of scans going from Taunton up to Frenchay Hospital. And finally an emergency delivery of a CD-ROM containing scans from the RUH in Bath to the neurosurgeons at Frenchay Hospital. This last call was a repeat of the one made earlier in the day by our East rider as the original CD-ROM was unreadable. NHS money saved: £60. Time on the road: 4h50m.
So the scores on the doors for tonight are £560 saved for the NHS and riders on the road for a gruelling 21h20. At the end of the evening I poured myself a couple of well earned drinks. It has been a busy and stressful day for me handling 17 requests for help - all but one of which we fulfilled - and I was happy for both me and the riders that no calls came in during the night.
Technorati tags: Volunteer, Motorcycle Emergency
