Complaining about the state of the nation and the world appears to be our national pastime. At least for now.

From the snouts in the trough excess as seen in the recent Pacific Brands white collar pay rises, while the blue collars were left jobless. To looters stealing from those who’ve lost everything. Yes they’re a pack of scumbags.

Then the other night I received a dose of reality. The real side of humanity.

We were called to transport a small child, about 5 years old and his mum to the major children’s hospital in town. He’d had a couple of seizures and needed to get a thorough once over from the neuro specialists.

The boy had cerebral palsy and had experienced seizures before. This time, however, the seizures were more severe and generalised unlike the absence seizures that he’d had before.

They’d been in the emergency department for the last four hours and the boy was in a sedated but restless sleep. Mum looked exhausted but sat watching over her son even though it was 2 am.

She said to me later that she feared that if she closed her eyes he’d be gone. He wasn’t her only son but at the moment he was everything in the world to her.

This is what life is about. The love for one another. The caring. The sharing.

Life has nothing to do with paychecks and Porches. TVs and thievery.

It was all I could do to make her smile.

In recent weeks I’ve had a couple of paramedics come up to me to talk about fluid. More specifically about how their partners have used fluid in patients too aggressively (in their opinion).

Fluid in a patient that’s 20 years old and 100kg is really not too much of an issue. Their ability to fluid balance isn’t usually in question. But the nanna who has a history of needing to take her “fluid” tablets and sleeps with 3 pillows propping her up is a different ball game.

It’s all a matter of balance.

However when someone describes the following scenario I get a little concerned:

Mary is a 30 year old. She’s played a bit of tennis in the morning and has just driven to the local cafe for some lunch with friends. She felt it was a nice sunny day and she wanted to catch up with her mates. Mid-way through lunch she feels sweaty, nauseated and is noted by her friends to have stared off into space for a good 15 seconds. She responds but is a little groggy. Her friends call for the ambulance.

Johnny/Jayney ambo wanders in. They find that Mary’s BP is low. Sitting around 75mmHg and she’s a little tachycardic at 105bpm. They don’t try and move her and get a friend to hold her shoulders as she sits on the seat.

The ambos pop some oxygen on through a Hudson mask and moniter her ECG.

They cannulate her with an 18 gauge cannula and dump some Hartmanns into her venous system. Her blood pressure starts to come back up. They grab the stretcher and zip her up to the local hospital where she’s given the once over by staff. She’s discharged a couple of hours later.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Oxygen – check. Monitor – check.

Then it all goes wrong. They cannulate. Why?

Sure the ambulance guidelines say that this person could use some fluid but the basics have just been missed.

The patient’s history says that she’s been active on a sunny day. She’s been racing around and has now sat down to a meal. She’s already a little dehydrated by the sport and then the eating has put her body into a more parasympathetic mood. Vaso-vagal anyone?

Females in general have lower blood pressures than males and dehydration plus the eating is naturally going to knock the blood pressure about.

The body knows what to do. It wants you to lie down. Simple.

What should the paramedics have done?

Lie the patient down and elevate the legs. Give her a minute and her blood pressure will pick up. Let her rehydrate in the normal way. Fluids by glass not by needle.

Mary would then have headed home with a friend and not had to tie up a public hospital bed.

Simple is often the best.

Melbourne’s raging bush fires, an inferno of unprecedented proportions. A death toll that as I write has just exceeded 200. This brings fear to me. My mind flashes to what happened to these poor folk. Their pain and suffering. Was it quick? God I hope so.

I’ve never had to attend to a burns patient before, but I’ve heard stories.

I’ve been to hangings. To stabbings. To beatings. But nothing compares to the fury of nature at her angriest.

I run through in my head what I would do if I was called out to help a bushfire survivor.

The dangers. Are they responding? Breathing? Talking…screaming. F*ck.

Just take their pain and suffering away, for Gods sake. Find a vein, shaking hands. The heat.

Scoop and go. Fast. They need fluids. Where are their burns, goddammit. Airway? Backup?

Thank god for the CFA. Thank god for the volunteers. Thank god for the locals. Thank god for the ambos that attended to the survivors.

Sleep well if you can. You deserve your rest.

In all honesty, the majority of the work done by Melbourne’s paramedics is mundane and un-exciting.

Stick a needle in here, wack a bandage on there. Chat to the nannas and the druggies. All in a days work.

Most of the “lights and sirens” driving is still only for the mundane jobs. A bit of reflux. My angina is playing up. In a nutshell, most of these patients have been sitting at home with the pain for a good few hours. The nans and grandads who get the chest pain generally wait until morning to call because “they didn’t want to inconvenience anyone”.

But then you do get the job. The 50 year old who clutches their chest and collapses. The little bub who blows up in a rash and struggles to breath because their little brother gave them a peanut. These are the jobs where the lights go on and the sirens get turned up and the speed is needed.

That’s when Bob in his falcadore has the subwoofer turned up and the ambulance is in his audio blindspot. The ambulance cruises up behind Bob, who has propped in the right lane and hasn’t checked his rear view mirror since he got his license.

Here’s a tip for all you folks out there:

• Check your rear view mirror every now and then.
• Turn down the subbies a tad.
• If you see an ambulance coming, try and merge to the left.
• Don’t merge like a psycho and slam your brakes on. If you cause an accident we will have to stop for you.
• Don’t get mad with the people around you.
• Don’t endanger yourselves.
• Use common sense.

If you do these things you are likely to get good karma and a wave with a blue glove from us.

Good luck out there.

Now if you, like me and other Melbournians, are living in erm… Melbourne, then you’ll know it’s hot outside. Flamin’ hot.

The state government has taken some steps towards warning people to “look after each other”, but I really think that a few simple things will save us all and give the paramedics out there a rest.

• Drink water – like they say – 2 litres per day.
• No slip, slop, slappin – just stay out of the sun.
• If you have to go out, go to air-conditioned shopping centres.

Logical and simple.

Ambos get sent to too many old timers who’ve dehydrated themselves. Instead of risking your life in this heat and copping a huge great needle in your arm with some salty water running up it – just pop your feet up and watch the tennis.

‘Nuff said.