Home Truths.
It was the early shift again, the one nobody wanted, but here was Kirsty walking in, feeling positive about the day ahead, but that's the only way you can feel when walking into Holby City ED, otherwise it will brake you down until you have no feeling, which Kirsty soon learnt, "Morning" she said as she greeted everybody, she went and changed into her scrubs deep in thought trying to remember if she done the packed lunches right or weather she had turned the iron off, she put the thoughts to rest and started changing, "Morning nurse Clements, your late?" Nick greeted. "I know I'm really sorry it won't happen again" "I'm sure it won't" Nick answered. She huffed and rolled her eyes but quickly got on with her duties.
Then we see, Amy, walking to school, 14 years of age and she felt like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders, she was an accident prone teenager and sometimes quite reckless, quite allot of accidents in the last few months, she really didn't care what happened to her. She walks into school, late again, she signs the late book and waits for a lecture of her year head, she walks away thinking she's got away with it when she hears, "Amy?" she turns around and walks over, her year head is standing there, she looks more concerned than usual, "This is the fifth day in a row that you have been late, are you sure there's nothing bothering you? You can tell me I'm here to help you Amy." "I'm fine, I just missed the bus! God can't you leave me alone there's nothing wrong with me and if there was I wouldn't tell you!" She angrily shouts and struts off quickly feeling quite bad as she knew Mrs Stevens was only trying to help, to her first class.
It's not long until break time, when she gets the texts, 'the back wall at break be there you dog!' She knew what was coming, a wave of worry swept over her but then she just accepted it and didn't care, then the bell rang and took her by surprise, looking around while everybody else smiled and went off to their breaks care free. Amy looked blankly as she walked out of the classroom, ignoring everybody in her path, she was on a mission, she tried to look confident as she wandered up to the back wall to a crowd of people, chanting 'fight fight fight' but she was ready for it, she didn't care anymore, the adrenaline pumped all through her body and jumped up to climb onto the wall as she climbed up and stood there on top of the world, she thought it seemed higher than usual and without thinking, happily keeled backward, not by accident as it might have seemed to everybody standing round. Everybody unexpectedly stood shocked, for about 10 seconds nobody moved or said anything, no one barely breathed. The bang knocked her straight out and into a pit of darkness and when she came around she could hear one girl crying hysterically telling a teacher how she had slipped and fell, she was rushed into an ambulance with a brace on her leg and her teacher Mrs Stevens in the back with her, She was being taken to Holby City ED, hearing the ambulance driver telling his colleague, it was all happening so fast for her she couldn't believe it.
"Here we have Amy Davies, slipped and fell from a 15ft drop, Sats are at 99% and she's slightly hypertensive, unconscious for about five minutes she has lacerations to her right lower leg and complaining of nausea" Dixie explains whilst handing Amy over to the doctors.
She is taken into cubicles and Kirsty and Nick come in to treat her, "Theres not been a word since the accident" explained Mrs Stevens to Nurse Kirsty Clements, "I'm not exactly sure what happened, apparently she went back there to see her friends, when she just fell" Dr Nick Jordan steps in "Hello Amy, I'm Mr Jordan and this is Kirsty Could you explain to me exactly how you fell?" Amy stares blankly. He carries on asking Amy some procedure questions but still no reply. "Okay, Mr Jordan would you mind stepping outside for a moment?" Kirsty asks as she reassuringly smiles at Amy, as if to say there is nothing to worry about, but she has seen it all before. They step outside the curtain and Nick explains his worries, "She's probably just in shock, but I don't want to take any chances, her notes show she's had lots of similar accidents in the past 6 months, excessive drinking, fell in front of a car, told her teacher she could do backflips when she clearly couldn't injuring herself, on purpose. Make sure somebody is with her at all times and has anybody phoned the parents?" "Her teacher has tried but there's no answer on any of the emergency contacts" "Okay, well keep trying" "Also I'd like to get phsyc down here to talk to her she seems to have too many so called 'accidents'." "Will do Mr Jordan, but I am a trained phsyc nurse so I know how to deal with this" Kirsty walks back in as Nick goes to sort everything out. "Amy? My names Kirsty and I'm very worried about you at the moment. We need to know exactly how you fell and onto which part of your body, anything you remember, anything at all? Because if left untreated it could potentially be very dangerous." Amy suddenly looks interested; she looks up and eagerly asks "How dangerous? Could I die?" A sigh of relief comes from Amy's response at least it was a response, "If left untreated then yeah it would be possible" Amy turns onto her side and with no emotion in her voice cries out "good I want to die, why can't you just let me die! It's what I want, but nobody ever listens, they always forget about me! I'm always left, nobody cares and no one ever will." Kirsty and Mrs Stevens look at each other shocked as they had no idea she was feeling this way, totally forgetting Nick's advice they quickly step outside to discuss what they have just heard.
Amy is rather shocked she has been left alone after what she has just said, she thought that would make things better it took her allot of effort to say all that out loud but from her point of view, she is still being ignored, and forgotten about, once again slipping through the net; Sitting up she sees a scalpel in one of the cabinet draws, Amy climbs down quietly off the bed and picks it up and takes a deep breath she layers into her arms, fast, deep, faster and deeper each time, it relives her, she feels in control of something for the first time in her life she carries on with a crazed smile on her face until it's too much for her body to take she passes out; Alarms go off on the monitors as her drip comes out and running in comes Kirsty. "Can I have some help over here please?" Nick and Ruth run over "we stepped outside for 2 seconds!" Kirsty shouts in complete shock, realising what they were actually dealing with. "Quickly now let's get her onto the bed and into rhesus." Nick shouts as he takes charge, completely overwhelmed with guilt Mrs Stevens starts crying; "It's my entire fault, I ignored her when she needed us most!" Tess comes over and takes her aside trying to comfort her. Then Adam rushes over protectively and asks Ruth if she okay to deal with this, considering Ruth's past. But she tells him its fine, she wouldn't possible want to look weak in front of her colleagues, even though deep inside she was a little taken aback. Feeling guilty for his part in what happened to Ruth, Adam follows on helping with Amy's treatment.
Hours later, the fuss is over and Amy regains consciousness for the second time today, after her second suicide attempt, finding herself wired up and in a hospital gown feeling more depressed and unwanted than ever. "Gave us quite a scare there" announces Nick. Amy quickly starts to cry realising that she's still here "I asked you to let me die! You can't stop me, it's not like I've only got two shots at it, as soon as your backs turned I'm gone!" she becomes panicked and breathes heavily, Ruth quickly puts on her on her oxygen mask and comforts her, Adam looks on, seeing another side to Ruth. Whilst Nick and Kirsty are having a quiet word, "Were lucky it's quiet in here today or we would have had to ship her off upstairs by now, we can keep her in rhesus for the time being, she should not have been left, if you are in any way incapable nurse Clements, I do not want you in this department" "Hang on Mr Jordan, what happened today was not my fault, I had no idea what we were actually dealing with and either did you." They walk out the room carrying on their debate. Not wanting to distress anyone else.
Amy has now calmed down and 'fallen asleep' rhesus is empty whilst Amy's teacher and Dr Winters are left alone watching over her. "Mrs Stevens why don't you go and get a cup of coffee? Its quiet in here today and you look exhausted?" she looks worried but agrees and so Ruth is left alone in Rhesus with Amy, knowing she is asleep "I wished I could have gone back and done it properly, but it does get easier, you just have to give it time, I mean we all have our moments, believe me I've had my fair share..." But Ruth's not one for sitting around twiddling her thumbs; so when she see's someone being rushed into peades rhesus she can't resist just to check for a moment, it looks an interesting case and Amy's asleep anyway, what harm could it do?
Ruth couldn't have picked a worse time to go because, at that very moment when Ruth left the room and the blinds were closed, two fifteen year old girls walk in and they don't look happy. It's the girls from school Kelly and Michelle the ones who wanted her a fight, they are sisters and come from a rough background, they live in the flats on the farmead estate with their god fearing uncle, no one would ever go near them, or grass them up for stealing or bullying, or you would not live to tell the tale, their they stand with the tiny braids braided into their head, looking harder and sterner than ever. "Alright Ames?" Amy quickly wakes up and looks around the room a little disorientated realising nobody's there, she wonders how long she's been alone and how long before they will come back, "What the hell do you want? Come to wish me well?" "Think that pretending to fall off a wall was going to stop us finding you? You think you're so hard, walking round school like you don't care what people do to you! I'm gunna' mess you up girl" Michelle shouts getting angrier but almost putting on a show herself, for her sister. "Go on Michelle!" shouts Kelly.
Amy no longer cares what people do to her so she quickly climbs out of the bed, trying to look unfearing, without the girls even having to say a word. The machine alarms go off, but it becomes apparent that nobody is coming to save her, with everyone so busy in the next room, she looks across but there all so stuck into saving a Childs life, that's there job not looking after Amy, no one ever does. "come on then? I'm not scared of you anymore" they stand there a little shocked, they expected for her to shout for help or something. "I can't hit you you're a cripple!" They both start laughing, this makes Amy angry, she's hoping Michelle hits her hard, she wants to feel the pain, with her fingers crossed she takes the first hit, this automatically gives Michelle permission to hit her back they start fighting in the middle of the rhesus, Ruth walks out of Peades rhesus, about to walk into rhesus to check on Amy she hears a bleeping from a coat at reception, she looks at her watch and quickly runs over, she picks it up, its Amys coat, she opens the texts and reads them Ruth looks worried.
She clicks on to what's happening and runs towards rhesus to the girls having a massive punch up, Adam and Nick are walking behind her arguing as usual, about his new CDU ward and they see what's going on, they run ahead of Ruth, barging into rhesus and drag Amy away, they each grab one arm and restrain her to the floor for her own safety; whilst Kirsty hears the commotion from next door her and Lenny run through to pull off Michelle, Ruth stands their looking helpless and shocked. Security quickly, uselessly and once again too late, escort Michelle and Kelly out of the Emergency department, Adam and Nick have hold on to Amy whilst she's kicking and screaming, her nose is bleeding and she's got acute pain in her ribs, whilst Michelle looks untouched apart from her hairs a bit messed up, Kirstys trying to calm her down whilst Adam and Nick are restraining an arm each to prevent her from injuring her self, shes in floods of tears but quickly calms down the doctors loosen their grip so that she's just lying on the rhesus floor on her side, crying and completely no dignity left in her.
"Okay, Amy I need you to look at me and me only, okay just listen to my voice, calm down and breathe slowly, count your breaths, Dr Truemans going to pick you up now, and put you back onto the bed so we can treat you, ok?" Kirstys voice made her feel calmer. Then Adam picked her up in his arms and put her onto the bed, she cries out in pain as she's injured her ribs in the fight. Everyone immediately springs into action and wires her up to the machines as she just lies there almost dead like, no more energy left in her just an empty shell.
Everything slowly calms down an hour later as Nick talks to Amy, "I just want to go, I can't do this anymore." "Are you being bullied at school? Is that what the girls came to do?" "NO! I'm not being bullied, I just don't want to live anymore and I don't know why that's the hardest part not knowing why not being able to tell people because I don't actually have a reason to be this way that's just the way I am a cold horrible, selfish person" she calmly says. "Would you mind if I done a sort of test on you Amy? It's called the SAD persons scale, it consists of 10 yes/no questions and it will help us identify what our next actions need to be." Nick goes to get his pen and clipboard as Kirsty comforts her. "Right Okay, Amy, do you drink?" "Um, I don't know, well sometimes, but not really" "Okay, do you take any drugs?" she shakes her head. "Have you ever tried to end your life, before today?" "yes." She whispers quietly. He asks a few more questions before coming to his conclusion. "Thank you Amy, thats it now, we are going to help you, and I promise we are not going to forget about you, your our number one priority, but on behalf of everyone I'd like to say sorry, we failed you today, we did forget and we didn't realise the severity of your feelings, but it will get sorted out, okay?" She still looks unsure but willing to try anything she agrees. Two doctors from the psychiatric ward come down and walk over to her as Kirsty walks over to Nick. Her parents arrive and Amys mother holds her in her arms, whilst her father who came back from his business trip in London speaks to Adam and finds out what happens.
"Coffee?" Nick asks Kirsty as they walk out of rhesus, "I think I need about three, But seriously I feel awful about what happened to Amy today and from now on we need to give these cases our full attention no more slipping through the net, no more two hour rule, it's okay for Ruth, but not for the Nurses and Doctors who actually care about what happens outside the hospital especially for the most vulnerable" "It won't happen again, I can't believe I'm saying this but, sod the centre of excellence and Henry if they don't like it stuff them, from what I've seen today it's not the quantity that we get in, its the quality of the care and it's my fault that our team wasn't able to give that today, I'm really sorry, now let's get that coffee"