Someone told me about a TV program broadcast in Scotland recently. It suggested that almost one in ten paramedics suffered from PTSD, and one paramedic interviewed was diagnosed with it worse than had they been on a battlefield! They also said that the Ambulance Service had declined the opportunity to give a representative the chance to be interviewed.
These are the men and women who are responding to emergency calls daily, and their employer doesnt even have the desire to comment on national TV.
There was also talk of things that had been put in place to help crew members and front line staff, but what I hear from those front line staff is different. Other than proving that few in positions of management are actually aware of the reality that goes on outside their office doors, a fact that has been known by ambulance crews for many years, this is nothing new.
The above is not just limited to one part of the country either, it is widespread across all the ambulance services in the UK. I’ve spoken about the 5 minute breaks we used to get after bad jobs, and the phone numbers that get handed out – Call someone who you’ve never met before, who has never met you and never will, and tell them over a telephone line how you feel… Then hope that your colleagues don’t find out because you’ll feel like a failure and they might think that you are unfit to do the job.
That is the reality, that is what ambulance services need to address, and that is why crew members struggle on, until it gets too much and they can’t go on any longer.
I’ve held back slightly in previous posts, but I see no reason to any more. I could write things that would (or should) probably have ambulance service managers squirming, and can back them up with strong evidence, but that’s not the purpose of my blog.
When you watch people die in front of you and you have done everything possible. When you’re faced with an angry drug addict who’s life you just saved but who’s high you took away in doing so. When you face countless drunks who threaten to kill you and your family when you are just trying to help with the injuries they got from fighting. When you spend 30 minutes or more working on a patient, giving CPR, providing advanced life support, then you hear that A&E staff gave up shortly after you handed the patient over….and then you pass that person’s relatives in the corridor…
“Here’s a number you can call if it’s too much.”
This isn’t something that can be changed overnight, and I don’t have any answers or solutions, I only have my own experience and knowledge of what others have been through.
My strong hope is that the Ambulance Service in Scotland, now these issues have been highlighted, now has to act, positively. Maybe other television companies will pick up the story in England, Wales and Ireland. Until the public are aware of the quiet suffering that all emergency workers go through, suffering that sometimes costs their own lives, not much will change.
During my time on the road I saw how my colleagues reacted, I saw the brash, faux toughness, the hard act. I even did it myself. But there comes a time when that doesn’t work anymore. For me, that time was when I left the service. My defenses fell because they werent being topped up for another shift. My support mechanism (my colleagues) was gone. Suddenly I had to face everything I’d seen and done on my own. I can’t heap enough praise on the people around me, the ones who tolerated me at that time. But there were people who didn’t wish to tolerate it, and friendships ended, making it harder. Nevertheless, I got through it with the help of the ones who stayed, and I know of others in the same position.
I’ve spoken in other posts of one friend who didn’t. This post is for them, and the ones like them. For the families and people they leave behind.
Maybe it’s time to think about the health of the health workers. To start monitoring their mental health, to start giving them regular mental health checks. To start saving the lives of the people who save lives.
Life After the Blues (and twos) 