artemisgarden

[artemisgarden]

wait, Derin how did your leaving make the hospital shut down?

I used to work as a live-in nanny for a pediatrician.

Now, the thing about hospitals in my country is that they are massively understaffed and massively underfunded. This is especially true outside the major cities. The staff are worked to the bone and receive little to no help in things like finding accommodation or childcare, making working in rural areas a very uninviting prospect; staff come out here, get lumped with the work of three people (because there's nobody else to do it), burn out under the workload and leave, meaning that those remaining have even more work because that person is gone. It's unsustainable and the medical staff are doing their best to sustain it, because people die if they don't, so to the higher-ups it looks like everything's getting done and therefore everything is fine.

My friend (and boss) worked one week on, one week off, swapping out with another pediatrician. This was necessary because it would not be physically possible for one person to handle the workload for longer periods of time. The one single pediatrician had to hold up the entire pediatrics ward, which was not only the only public hospital pediatrics ward in our town, but also the one that served all the towns around us for a few hours' drive in all directions. I regularly saw her go to work sick, aching, tired, or with a debilitating 'I can barely make words or see' level migraine, because if she took a day off, twenty children didn't get healthcare that day, and some of these kids' appointments were scheduled weeks in advance. She'd work long hours in the day and then be called in a couple of times overnight for an hour or two at a time (she was on-call at night too, because somebody had to be), and then go in the next day. Sometimes she would be forced to take a day off because she physically could not stay awake for longer than a few minutes at a time, meaning she couldn't drive to work.

Cue my niece's second birthday coming up in Melbourne. I'd been working for her for about 3 years, and she (and the hospital) had plenty of advance warning that I (and therefore she) needed one (1) Friday off. That's fine, we'll find someone to work that Friday, the hospital said. Right up until the last week where they're like "oh, we can't find a replacement; you can come in, can't you?"

No, she tells them; I don't have anyone to watch my kid that day.

Oh, surely you can hire a babysitter for this one day, they say. Think of the children! We really really need you to work that day. I know we said it'd be fine but we need you now, there's no one else to do it.

There are no other babysitters, she told them. Unless you can find one?

That's not our responsibility, they said.

But I'm not changing my plans, she's got plans by now as well, the hospital knew about this one day weeks in advance, and with absolutely no reserve staff they're forced to reschedule all pediatrics appointments for that Friday. Not a huge deal, it happens on the 'physically too overworked to get out of bed' days too. I go to Melbourne, she goes back to her home in Adelaide for her recovery week, all should be on track.

My niece gives me Covid.

This was way back in the first wave of the pandemic, and there were no Covid vaccines yet. The rules were isolate, mask up, hope. I had Covid in the house, and it would've been madness for my friend and her toddler to come back into the Covid house instead of staying in Adelaide. There was absolutely no way that a pediatrician could live with someone in quarantine due to Covid and go to work in the hospital with sick children every day. And no support existed for finding another babysitter, or temporary accommodation, so the hospital was down a pediatrician.

The other pediatrician wasn't available to do a three-week stint. They were also trapped in Adelaide on their well-earned week off.

Meaning that the only major pediatrics ward within a several-hour radius had no pediatricians. They had to shut down and send all urgent cases to Adelaide for the week. To the complete absence of surprise of any of the doctors or nurses; of course this would happen, this was bound to happen, it presumably keeps happening. But probably to the surprise of the higher-ups. After all, the hospital was doing fine, right? Of course all the staff were complaining of overwork and a lack of resources in every meeting, but they could always be fobbed off with the promise of more help sometime in the future; the work was mostly getting done, so the issue couldn't be too urgent.

It's not like some nanny who doesn't even work for the hospital could go out of town for a weekend for the first time in three years, and get the only public pediatrics ward in the area shut down for a week.

[artemisgarden]

It’s a five-minute walk from my house to the pub.

It’s a thirty-five minute walk from the pub to my house.

The difference is staggering.

[artemisgarden]

Important image for all your wizard memeing needs

[artemisgarden]

If you see this on your dashboard, reblog this, NO MATTER WHAT and all your dreams and wishes will come true.

[artemisgarden]

[artemisgarden]

[artemisgarden]

I don’t think we talk enough about how, despite the presence of multiple globes, PotC takes place on a flat earth, ice wall included.

[artemisgarden]

possibly one of the most hilarious exchanges on doctor who 

[artemisgarden]

Pros of re-reading your own fic

a good time;

Has exactly the tropes you like and the characterization you want to read;

Gratification: yes you did finish a thing and yes you did do good;

just a very fun time all around.

Cons of re-reading your own fic:

Is that another TYpO

[artemisgarden]

lifehack: when you see a Take One candy bowl in a restaurant, wait until noones looking and shovel candy into your pockets. god may judge you but his sins outnumber your own

[artemisgarden]

While You Were Sleeping (1995) dir. Jon Turteltaub

[artemisgarden]

Fun fact: in the 80′s the Dutch Unemployed Union held ‘fridge raids’ to protest against poverty. 

They’d find out when a politician of big boss who upheld poverty and starvation wages was speaking at some public even, then they’d carefully break into his house with a LOT of people and they would eat EVERY piece of food in his house and leave the empty dished behind without taking anything else. 

[artemisgarden]

[artemisgarden]

why oh my goodness... look at this polite rat at my door! well i simply must give them a good old fashioned treat :) here, come closer, see what's inside my bucket:

Congratulations. You have received: The Elusive Bass ($22)

[artemisgarden]

I BESTOW UPON THEE A MILLION GUMMY SHARKS!!! FOR THE CUTEST, LIL RAT COVERED IN BL—

Hey, hold up a minute, is uh... is that real blood...?

[artemisgarden]

ilove people who work at front desks of things. i can walk into a building and go to the desk and i ask how do i do this thing. and then they just fucking tell me !!!!

[artemisgarden]