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The truths they don't want you to read....

Friday, August 03, 2007

Health and safety

vodka hospitalAs I sat in the League of Friends teabar at the Western Isles Hospital today, a man sat down on the other side of the room nursing his lunchtime cuppa.

He appeared to be a tradesman, who was working at the hospital, judging by his dress and demeanour, and not a Health Board employee judging by the absence of any badges, official passes, or anything that marked him out as having any kind of responsibility for anything.

As he sat down, poking from the back pocket of his jeans was a red topped bottle of what appeared to be vodka. Opened, and judging from the absence of liquid when it was lying on it's side in his pocket, more empty than full.

Having finished his tea, he sauntered off back towards one of the wards to fix whatever piece of (please, God!) non-essential equipment he was working on.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Quite a few staff were also in the tea bar at the same time - we also saw, but knowing a little more than you did not jump to wrong conclusions. He was indeed a visitor to the hospital. He was making no effort to "hide" the bottle and would certainly not have been allowed a work permit by hospital staff.

Angus said...

Glad to know that other's saw it, and that he would have been stopped from doing anything.

I suppose this must happen too frequently, and you professionals know how to deal with it.

Us visitors just saw it as frightening cum amusing.

Anonymous said...

Anon, don't you think that it should be the policy of hospital staff to ask people like this to remove the offending article? There is a lot of publicity around the hospital relating to abuse of staff and surely alcohol is a major contributor to this abuse and a bottle in the hands of someone who has a problem could become a weapon.

Anonymous said...

also it gives REAL alcoholics the excuse - well they saw my bottle... i didn't think i was doing anything wrong...