24 Hour Ward Party

24 Hour Ward Party                          (Phil Portus   April 2003)

(to be ONLY read in the delivery style of Punk Poet, John Cooper Clarke)

 

Pushed  in on a wonky wheelchair chariot,

Costing  a pound like a  super market cart,

Left in Accident and Emergency for time,

Rated low risk on the triage chart,

Knowing all to well why it is called a Waiting Room.

 

Seeing life and death all around,

The drunk the drugged the mugged and thugged,

The pained the phased the crazed and dazed

The blind, the deaf, the dumb and the evil,

The sane in pain.

 

The thick getting on your wick,

The need for a coffee but the machine don’t work,

The need to talk but no mobiles please,

The need for the latest copy of, Hello Magazine,

The need to be seen by a doctor.

 

On the ward the wheeze the pees the farts and moans

The cheese and peas and tarts and cold

Custard, gravy, coffee and tea,

All make up the ward party.

 

Breakfast, lunch and dinner separated by tea

And sympathy,

Blood pressure, temperature and pulse separated by curtains and time and time again,

Doctors and surgeons with trailing juniors hanging onto every word, all by mouth,

Pie, pasta, peas, carrot cubes

Potatoes boiled, chipped and masses of ice scream scooped mash,

Oh! to be nil by mouth.

 

Chirpy chappies, miserable sods, walking death and couldn’t care less,

Stretcher cases, walking wounded, crutches and sticks

Make up the Band-Aid ward army.

 

Injection, rejection, blood donors needed

Kidneys, liver and hearts wanted now!

Carry the card, pledge your parts

Give your self away to reduce burial charge.

 

Sound the alarm, call the nurse,

Send for the doctor, don’t make it worse,

Oxygen mask, tubes and drips,

Draw the curtains, last gasp,

And you know its curtains.

 

Morning clatter that could wake the dead,

Tea and toast, jam and butter,

Morning coffee and a light bland lunch,

Afternoon tea and the visitor bunch

Of flowers and get well soon cards,

Evening meal tastes like puke,

More visitors, “Can’t stay mate, off to the pub”.

Sleeping pills, Horlicks and hot milk,

Dimmed lights, snores and dreams,

The night nurse creeps around,

Having an orgy on chocolates, fruit and cordial,

Reading the Sun and News of the World

Until the dawn.

The start of the next 24 hour ward party.

 

note:  Please note I’m eternally grateful to Wythenshawe hospital and staff for saving my life following me getting DVT in 2003.