Arriving first thing Monday morning with a suitcase full of bare essentials my first question is – where am I going to sleep? An awkward one this, since Jill has been rushed away unexpectedly, and it’s all systems go on the ward. Undaunted, I volunteer to crash in the intensive care unit, which turns out to be the only spare bed in the entire hospital.
It’s a long way from Tahiti, but this will do. While unpacking my golf clubs I get talking to Dave, one of the hospital porters, who challenges me to a round, before lamenting that he’s “wheeled out three stiffs already” this week. If Dave was in Iraq they’d give him a medal, but here he’s just another unsung hero on the front line of patient care.
Unlike the hospital’s valiant doctors and nurses my job description this week is far more mundane, although no less important. I begin by shadowing Glenda, a hospital cleaner with 20 years' experience, who swears blind she was born with a mop in her hand. As we begin chatting I figure Glenda must be sitting on a wealth of untapped insights. What does this hard-working hygiene consultant make of the dreaded MRSA virus?
Glenda’s response, when it finally arrives, is like a breath of fresh air: “I just mop up the shit.”
Private sector cleaning companies have copped no end of flak for the lacklustre state of this country’s hospitals, but if Glenda’s sterling work is anything to go by hygiene should be the least of our worries. It’s such a revelation to see pile after pile of human excreta being systematically intercepted and then safely disposed of. After our mid-afternoon tea break Glenda and I swap roles, with me on the mop this time, and her on the bucket. We make a good team until I accidentally catapult a pile of vomit onto the ceiling (don’t ask how!) Time to call it a day.
The next morning I emerge from my intensive care suite rested and rearing to go. Jill arrives looking flustered: it’s been a bad night. A motorway pile up on the M27 has left a couple dead and their five-year-old son in a critical condition. Since there were no intensive care beds available at Sappington, the child had to be airlifted to a hospital on the outskirts of London, some 120 miles away, even though the accident took place a mere two miles down the road. It’s a cruel irony that speaks volumes about the way in which resources are currently being stretched in the NHS.
About time we thrashed out the day’s agenda (thankfully no more mops) and a scheduled visit by a DUFFF delegation of nodal facilitators and para-meta-linguistic design strategy consultants. Although still relatively unknown to the wider public, this type of partnership is typical of the way in which the NHS is adapting to the new challenges of 21st century healthcare. In an era in which a staggering 90% of terminally ill patients are diagnosed with a terminal illness, DUFFF is helping to radically alter perceptions. “With so many people wasting away on hospital wards,” Jill says, “isn’t it about time we started thinking creatively?”
Jill's clearly been on the brain juice. This isn’t just a question of alternative therapies – although of course homeopathic treatments have never been as popular as they are today. Instead, it’s more about turning the situation around and asking: “Am I really ill?”
Take Page 3, DUFFF’s resident artist. A deaf mute anarchist since birth, Page defied the medical establishment by opting for a career as a spontaneous bowel evacuation performance artist. Riana Baker, Page’s agent, recalls how the biggest hurdle lay in convincing Page that there was nothing actually wrong with her. “It took some doing,” says Riana, “but once the circus bookings started coming in there was no stopping her.”
So what hope the patients on Tahiti Ward might be able to harness the creative potential of their illnesses? Bill is a 53-year-old window cleaner who fell off a ladder while reaching for his shammy leather, and who now may never walk again. Would he ever consider performance art as a means of overcoming his handicap? “I suppose if they gave me enough injections I could fall off the ladder again,” says Bill. “Or they could drop you onto a trampoline,” suggests Peter, a former tax inspector suffering from chronic honky instep. “They could set fire to me for all I care,” he adds sourly. “Since my wife ran off with a landscape gardener life’s not been worth living.” I pass Peter’s details on to Riana.
The day ends with an exhilarating performance by Page 3, who sprays the ward with faeces. The patients are so enthused that they even get a Mexican wave started (apologies to the lady with her arms in plaster). That’s the spirit - laughing in a shitstorm shows the true potential of cognitive therapy. Even the nurses join in. “I never imagined doing a pooh could be so artistic,” says Pam (pictured, with some of Page’s work, bottom right). Nor did I. Time to reach for that mop again.
To find out more about DUFFF visit The Right Path Party.
(Originally published 20 July 2007)
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