taking charge

                    Taking Charge



  I am Lorna Jones-an ex-nurse at St. James’ hospital in London. Before now I’ve never had the guts to tell anyone my story.  This is how it all happened.



Throughout the whole of my childhood I had always wanted to be a nurse, I made a real effort to get my first aid badge at brownies, and when I reached the age that I was too old to continue with Brownies I joined St. John’s ambulance group after school; going three times a week.



  During my work experience in year ten, I went to a hospital, to make sure this was the job for me. It was! My mate Kara was sick at the first sight of blood, but I wasn’t even queasy. Jada, one of my other mates, actually fainted, Leon had to leave because he went all red and itchy from all the chemicals, and by the end of the day it was only Alex and I left, every one else had some kind of excuse for why they had to leave. 



I was really excited when Alex and I had completed our experience, until I found out Alex couldn’t face the smell of hospitals any longer and was now going to work in the new Smart Price down the road. I cried underneath the lenses of my glasses, my throat tightened as my asthma kicked off. Everyone was so excited about their job I didn’t want to get people down- so I had to look on the bright side, I could easily make new friends, I always have done, with me getting expelled from the last eleven schools id been to, but this time I was determined to stay put and not cause anymore chaos.



  When I had finally left school, college and university I went to the new hospital-  St. James in London. For my first days, I was under supervision of Nurse Johnson-a forty year old, grey haired, male nurse. He was quite relaxed but also quite stubborn, especially on the days him and his wife had had arguments. He was a great nurse; sometimes stubbornness and relaxing put together can make a beautiful thing, a nurse like himself.



  We dealt with lots of patients together. As we went along he taught me little lessons, one of them would have kept my job if I had been paying attention, rather than admiring my outfit.  That one lesson was, never inject penicillin into a patient with heart diseases, into the blood vessel. Always insert it into part of skin right next to the vein you would normally place the penicillin into, because if you do you could cause a serious accident maybe even death.



  This lesson could have saved my job because the next day Nurse Johnson took me to a patient in cubicle three and told me “this Is Jenna Long and she suffers severely from heart disease. I am needed on ward seven, I’ll only be gone a minute but while I am, I’m leaving you in charge.” I was so worried, I didn’t want to show how worried I was in front of Nurse Johnson or he would think I was just a little wimp pulling his leg. So I read her notes, it said in bold letters:



NEEDING 5 MILLIGRAMS OF PENICILIN EACH HOUR, NEXT TIME NEEDING A DOSE: 7.45PM.



  I looked at my watch it was seven forty three, so I went and prepared 5mg of penicillin. When I got back it was seven forty five, so I injected the penicillin, the needle plunged into the vein, I was about to pull out the needle when my finger slipped, releasing all the penicillin into the blood stream. Jenna suddenly started fitting so; I went to ward seven and brought a nurse back to Jenna. “She has had another dose of penicillin and it will soon get to the heart. The heart might survive if it was not such a large amount but seeing as it is such a large amount there is a 70 percent chance she wont survive.” shouted a nurse, as Jenna was hurried in to theatre, I was told to wait outside theatre for the news of Jenna. “I am really sorry Lorna but Jenna didn’t make it.” “WHAT ARE YOU SO SORRY ABOUT? I KILLED HER”



  I was sent to Mr Craigen’s office- the man who was in charge of the whole hospital.  I came out with tears flooding my specs. I’d lost my job, and I could never become a nurse again. I had spent so many years getting the career I wanted, then it was all over, I was ruined.



    I made a mistake I had to take charge for my actions and face the consequences, no matter how painful they were.