Cairde a chara

Last night, I collected Pat from the train station in Heide (yes, this is the city with Germany’s largest market square!). You’ll remember that we gave the little red Kia

Ferrari a break, as Pat went straight from the airport to see Pádraig and then took the train towards Dithmarschen. For a change, I was on time. And waited. Until Pat rang and asked me where I was. Turned out we were on opposite sides of the quite small railway station, me in the car and Pat – trapped in the Deutsche Bahn waiting room, having escaped from the arctic temperatures outside. When my engineering skills failed to open the automatic door, Pat and I decided we were not going to smash the glass but to ring 110 instead (that is 911 for the Americans amongst you). 10 minutes later, security arrived and opened the door. When we pointed out that this was something quite dangerous: a door that allows people in but then leaves them with no way out, the security man said: “Well, she shouldn’t have gone in there in the first place”. Right, we thought. In our innocent minds, we had expected an apology but now were getting a whole new perspective on things. You might find that doors open on the way in but are firmly shut close when you are trying to get out.

Today, Pádraig took a small step back. The microbiologists discovered traces of a bacteria or germ which required Pádraig to get back into isolation, and us to get back into our beloved blue gowns and mouth protectors. There is no clinical evidence of the bacteria, i.e., they don’t do any active damage at the moment, but the hospital is über-careful to contain any possible threats. It was easy for Pádraig to get into his bright new high-tech room – I hope we won’t have to call Deutsche Bahn security to get him back out, one day soon.

We are trying to tell the nurses and doctors what Pádraig can and what he cannot do, what he needs and what he doesn’t need. They haven’t figured out yet how Irish families work and still live under the illusion that they could fob us off telling us ‘stories’ when we represent a collective year of ICU experience by now. For example, there is no-one better than Pat to know when Pádraig needs to be suctioned, the nurse who didn’t believe this learned about it tonight. We give them another week or so, by then everybody will know much better where they stand.

This morning, we heard on RTE that the European Commission is bringing Ireland to the  European Court of Justice because it failed to implement the European Directive of the 48-hour-per-week maximum working time. The EC felt that this was not just unfair to doctors but that the practice was also putting patients at risk. Apparently, Minister O’Reilly, himself a doctor, didn’t understand what the fuss was all about as he had already clarified that the 2003/88/EC directive would be implemented in late 2014 – just 11 (eleven) years after it was published. – You wonder whether O’Reilly is capable of getting out of the trap of his protected life as a minister. Should we ring 110?

Le meas,
Reinhard

Today’s German Music Tip
Udo Lindenberg, Highlights of MTV Unplugged (2011) (Don’t be mislead by the ‘2011’, Udo is Germany’s oldest and original Rock Musiker who teamed up with some younger German colleagues to play some of his best music in the Hotel Atlantic in Hamburg just two years ago. I know all the lyrics off by heart:)
What’s hot
The no-Stau Autobahn
<6l/100km
LTE
Kilometres we have driven to-date (since Wed., 13 Nov): 2,074
What’s cold
Isolation
The weather
The German word/phrase of the day
Die wolln mir erzählen von Hamburg bis Laos, wo’s hier langgeht in diesem Chaos. (Udo Lindenberg in: Der König von Scheissegalien)