Christmas on the wards

By BBC Doctor Colin Thomas

There is nothing quite like a Christmas day on call in hospital.

It was always likely that as a junior you would spend at least one or two banged up in hospital.

If you have never worked a Christmas day before then there is an element of trepidation as you walk in.

The whole hospital is very quiet. Patients who are even remotely well enough to get out of bed don't want to miss the festivities, so have badgered their consultants to let them go home far too soon.

So the wards tend to be almost unoccupied. However some unfortunate patients have to stay in at Christmas, and the staff do try to recreate the spirit as far as possible.

This usually involved dressing up in silly costumes, and even the most battle-axed sisters made some token gesture, even if it was only a length of tinsel wrapped around their cap - Thank goodness it wasn't mistletoe!

What the sisters all had however was a secret supply of Christmas goodies - booze and food which was a traditional offering to the consultants and their families who turned up on Christmas day in a show of solidarity.

Silly costume

My silly costume that year was Santa, but I still had to accompany the consultants around the wards, and with each consultant, and at each ward, I found myself tucking into a mixture of twiglets, mince pies, pickled onions and Christmas cake.

I religiously avoided the booze until one Consultant turned up with Champagne - surely one little glass wouldn't hurt?

Perhaps it was the bubbles, but combined with the seething mixture of high fat Christmas snacks I began to get that feeling that most people get just before the Queen's speech and after a big festive lunch.

The only difference was that I got my feeling at 10.30 in the morning.

I decided to slope off to my on call room feeling quite ill, and as I discarded my Father Christmas gear lay down on the bed and drifted into a sleep.

Then my bleep went off. The first thing I noticed was that it was dark.

I looked at my watch, it was 8.30pm - I had slept all the way through Christmas!

But, as quite often happens on a Christmas day, nothing had happened so luckily I wasn't missed.

The call was to re-admit one of those patients who had been discharged too soon.

Christmas excesses had taken their toll on him too as he had developed a burst abdomen.

I will not go into any great detail, but it definitely put me off my turkey leftovers.

You'll be pleased to hear I was then up all night sorting out problems until my colleague took over on Boxing Day.

I suspected that he might have one or two more post-Christmas crises to sort out, but luckily I wasn't one of them.