Memories of Kirkby - Aintree Hospital

Most of us in Kirkby will end up at Aintree hospital, the old Fazackerly hospital, below is a short story on an experience there in 2003. Not really memories of Kirkby, but worth publishing. ...............

Aintree Hospital it's called now, but most of us still call it Fazackerly hospital. I'm here in the Accident and Emergency department; it's a Sunday night, and the time is approx 10pm. I'm just in the queue, I'm not bleeding to death or having a heart attack, but I need treatment and I was told on the phone there was an hour and a half waiting time in the A and E department.

I go in through the main doors, walking over a few hundred cigarette ends and a huddle of smokers which is always part of the scene at any major Accident and Emergency ward. Smokers thrive on worry and here they find the greatest excuse ever to light one up. They'll light up one up for broken legs, virus infections and on behalf of relatives dying of lung cancer. It's a bit like drunks raising a toast for a mate who's liver packed in, or junkies playing Pink Floyd and hitting up on smack because there 'mate' has Overdosed.

I head to the 'Triage' which is the 'gateway' to the hospital and where people are weighed up as to how long they can be expected to wait. You'll be seen promptly if there is any major obvious damage, there's a score system in operation, the higher up the score chart your injury is, the quicker your seen. I'm looking at the low end of the 1 to 7 scale as my own injury does not need immediate treatment. But if I was private and paid cash, I'd be sailing in there, right into a nice personal room with some Top Doc who will rouse him/herself from the beauty sleep for a good old cash inducement. I'm gonna get some overworked 25 year old first year student doc on the last hour of a 36 hour stint. I'm not doubting the ability of new doctors, but I'm glad my leg aint hanging off all the same.

I give my name in, describe the injury then see a woman at reception so they can feed my details into the computer database. Once that's done, I'm left to get a seat and take in the scenery. I decide to set my mobile phone alarm for 2 hours in the naïve hope I'll be seen by then, I sit down on one of the brightly colored uncomfortable plastic chairs, then look around the place.

There must be only a few people being seen to, its quiet, for now, with one old bloke who seemingly lives here, and four or five homeless people, along with a couple of lads looking for 'detox'. The lads looking for detox are talking about the 'gear' they've taken before seeking the help of the NHS. It seems detox is kind of like a sauna for drug addicts, a chance to clean all the toxins out before they partake in more. That's there plan. They even discussed being 'sectioned', apparently a sure fire way of getting top DSS benefits. Anyone suffering from genuine mental illness is going to be sitting at the back of a long queue looking at a hundred 'mad' heroin addicts eating up resources. By the time the night was through, I was to spot at least half a dozen street chemical enthusiasts (junkies) plus the usual alcohol induced walking wounded who would soon be making an arrival. Set your watch for the time the pubs and clubs spill out. American Doctors had Vietnam to give them loads of practice, we have clubland and the surgeons are well practiced before they are let loose to the private sector to stitch up executives and solicitors. You never see a good doctor hanging around an NHS accident and emergency ward with a cut hand or broken toe. The junior doctors break their teeth on us, and quickly head off to better pastures.

You always get the drunks in hospitals. In some ways it's a welcome sight when you're looking at half a dozen pale faced junkies scratching and twitching. The traditional English Drunk restores your faith in humanity; it's come to something when you get nostalgic at the thought of some drunken man singing in the street. We still have the ordinary decent drunks though. The first drunk who came in had already been waiting outside a while when he came back in asking if his name was called yet. He had the ordinary decent drunk's uniform on, a shirt, trousers and black shoes. Clean socks and underwear no doubt. He looked like he may have been out trying to get laid before someone laid their fist smack bang into his chops. He's got 20 ciggys in his shirt pocket and bloodstains on the front of his shirt. All his knuckles are scraped, some bleeding, and he's holding a grey cardboard bowl, given to him to stop the blood dripping on the floor. After a few minutes, he nods off, the blood drying up.

Another bloke comes in, he's not really looking too drunk, if atall, but by his physique he looks like he stands in pub or club doorways a lot. He's got his own escort of two police, a cop woman and a man. The cops aren't too concerned, the blokes a big lad but he aint aggressive and you know there's not likely going to be a kick off here. This bloke is dressed as if he's just come out of the gym. He wears a torn t-shirt and a pair of baggy tracksuit bottoms. I look at the knuckles, cut and torn up a bit. I don't think he's had an accident, but you don't want to judge him. Maybe he was trying to beat the shit of a burglar. You never know.

There's one bloke who has me thinking of the Pink Floyd Junkie Anthem 'Comfortably Numb'. Funny how so many working class lads took all that Pink Floyd Bollocks a bit too far. Pink Floyd sang 'we don't need no education'; but you wonder whether some fans took it to heart too much. Pink Floyds own privileged kids weren't bunking off school or stuck in some fucked up comprehensive. Anyway, as Pink Floyds kids were in the private schools, we had a legion of Scousers who thought Roger Waters spoke for a generation.

The Pink Floyd fan, call him 'comfortably numb' is looking like he's ate nothing atall for a few days. But he's definitely comfortably numb, in fact, he's so spaced out that he's watching the late night film on one of the two TV's positioned in the Waiting Area. I look around, there's a fucking audience surrounding me, it's like a fucking drive in cinema for the homeless and hardcore fans of chemical abuse. The movie is a late night American Bullshit special, but there's a gun being used, so there are a few people who are following the plot. 'Comfortably Numb' is wide eyed, he's into the movie and even gets up to move nearer the screen once a few people fuck off. I can't follow the plot, and the TV is positioned 20 foot in the air so you're looking at a mild form of whiplash just watching it.

Some of you may not believe this, but the Toilets in the Accident and emergency are lit up with some weird purple colored ultra violet light. This is to deter junkies hitting up with the needles, and it works on the theory that the junkies cannot see their veins in this weird light to inject. I spotted my first 'weirdly lit up toilet' at Central Station in Liverpool Central Station about 2 years ago. I asked a worker what it was for, 'Stops Smack heads injecting mate' he said knowingly. Since then, I've seen a few more toilets like that. Were really in deep shit if were going to have to put purple ultra violet lights in public toilets. What next, showing a form of ID to buy a roll of silver foil?

The adverts come on. 'Comfortably numb' and another bloke head out for a smoke. I notice the two 'detox' lads walk out, and it looks like good pickings in the old 'bum a ciggy' stakes. There's smokers going outside all the time, loads of people have come in to accident and emergency and spill out from wards. The families of real victims are carrying packets of cigarettes and the detox lads and a couple more are in there like a heat seeking missile. By the time the smokers realise they are targeted, it's too late. Most people hand over the ciggy, and the detox lads could well camp outside and never buy a packet of smokes again. People are even throwing half smoked ciggys on the floor. Needless to say, there a bit of a response to this waste as at least four people are seen picking up the discarded smokes. The old Tramps, few and far between now, compete with young heroin addicts for the cigarette stumps on the floor. A sign actually advises people to not smoke in the Hospital grounds, but an ashtray positioned outside contradicts this advice. This hospital is all into the spindoctored 'Be healthy' bullshit philosophy and then sells us fizzy cans of drink. Posters telling us to eat healthy food like apples battle for our attention next to the sweets and crisp machines. They never have an apple in these machines. Half the waiting room is made up of people who are just messed up on drugs. Doesn't the NHS give them free needles? The contradictions force me outside to get asked the inevitable 'have you got a ciggy mate'

An older bloke is in the corner, trying to sleep, as are a couple more people. The shape of the plastic chairs means they contort themselves, trying to spread out over 3 or 4 chairs. The old bloke settles for sitting on one chair then leaning on his elbow which is positioned on a bin, by the coke machine. There's a cleaner who sweeps around us all, many of us say hello and she has a laugh with a few of the people there. She knows the old man, and another homeless man, maybe a year or two older than me, tells her he's been kicked out of some hostel for fighting. He looks fairly clean, not high or even drunk. One bloke is dead to the world, only the odd snoring noise betrays life, although maybe not life as we know it.

A Woman aged about 60 or so comes in periodically, she has 2 handbags and I hear her asking for change. I try not to catch her eye; she avoids me anyway and gets lucky by the coke machine. I feel sorry for her, she looks like she should be in a hostel, but these people like to come to hospitals for the company. There's late night TV, light to read by, and always a spare newspaper hanging around. The cans of coke are an extortionate 60p. Mars bars are 40p. You've got ciggys within easy reach and a toilet. The tea and coffee machine was broke though. A few people tried to put the money in, someone became an official announcer for a while, telling 3 or 4 people it was broke as they battled to make it work.

After a while, the news comes on. I tune in to it, it's fairly quiet and I notice a few people look up with interest. The War is the No 1 news item. The war to come, not yet in progress in the true sense. Even 'comfortably numb' perks up a bit, he may well be working out how much more or less drugs this will mean. Or how cool the cruise missiles will look on CNN. We then get Palestine, and watch the gunmen fighting the Israeli Army invading their City. We see a Palestinian hospital; it's almost one of those 'global village' moments. Here I am with comfortably numb, the detox lads, hula hoops and a few more self made casualties watching real casualties in another hospital, live on T.V!

Outside again for another commercial cigarette break I get talking to two women. Ones got her husband in with a possible heart attack, they were out drinking, his birthday, and back home he gets the dreaded pains in the chest. Another Woman is there with her daughter and their little baby who has asthma. Genuine people, genuine reasons for being there. There are a few more people, a big family who are in a sort of show of solidarity with whoever's been taken in. There's about 7 of them, and they have a few laughs whilst waiting, it's a pleasant crowd. A lad is in with his girlfriend who is there in pyjamas. You can tell by looking there not in because of crack cocaine and heroin abuse. Nor are they drunk.

More ordinary people are here. In fact, if I walked around the wards taking to the patients, I'd see hundreds. The people who never make the headlines, old men who fought the Nazis, old woman who struggled to make something of nothing to raise our parents and grandparents. I wish there was a way of articulating all this to comfortably numb, hula hoops and the detox lads. They'd just look at me dumb faced, because they are dumb. If there was a prize for the dumbest of the most dumbest losers, this fucking waiting room would have a few contenders.

It's enough to turn you into a Thatcherite Right wing bigoted Working Class hating Tory just sitting here. But hold on a moment before you get all nostalgic over Maggie Thatcher. Half the junkies here could well be the sons and daughters of junkies; the Thatcher generation of selfish twats whose rallying call was basically 'me, me, me'. The Tories created a situation whereby the Junkie population exploded. As long as the drugs just killed off and doped up the Working Classes, it was not really an issue for the Politicians to show too much concern over. Only when the sons and daughters of the privileged starting overdosing did we see the Middle Classes begin to beat their drums. The 'me, me, me' generation looked down on the idea of a community sharing resources. We were encouraged to worship the 'Yuppies', as if a bunch of cocaine snorting thieving scum in London were an example to our kids. 'Greed was good' we were told while these Yuppies robbed the Country blind, selling off all our Nationalised industries and the family silverware. Anyway, as I thought of all this, my urge to become a Right Wing Tory Working Class hating Bigot was diminished somewhat.

All this 'me, me, me' philosophy is bearing its bitter fruit now. Whilst the selfish yuppie worshipping scum were promoting self centered individualism as a noble cause, they only ended up creating a nightmare for Working Class People who watched the 'me, me, me' generation rob our houses, our cars and whatever else they could get their thieving hands on. From the Designer Suited Businessmen and Politician to the drug addict in a tracksuit, the anti social scum come from all walks of life, united by the basic philosophy of Money is God.

We can see the selfish scum as they put their parents in Old People Farms rather than spoil their lifestyles with the inconvenience of caring for them. Is it a co-incidence that since the 80's we have seen an explosion of these homes? It's the 'me, me, me' generation again. Scum who'd see their own Mother threw into a nursing home rather than get their hands dirty for a while. The same Tory Scum who promoted 'family values' were content to destroy the very Communities were families struggled to survive. Nowadays 'Family value' is just a throwaway term used by Supermarkets as they rip off the punters. Family value? Daylight Fucking Robbery more like it.

Daylight was breaking as I left Aintree Hospital, formerly Fazackerly Hospital. The TV is still on, 'comfortably numb' is still there, looks like he's gonna be watching Breakfast TV or whatever it's called now. Hula Hoops is laid out flat on the chairs, the detox lads are still lurking about, and they're probably looking forward to getting out to score again after the NHS goes to the trouble of cleaning the junk out their systems.

I walk out the main doors, past the discarded cigarette ends and head out hoping I don't have to come back in a hurry.