Night time at the hospital

Hospitals are a funny place at night. There's virtually no staff as you wonder the hallways, making the whole place have an eerie deserted feel. It's quite nice in an odd sort of way. There's no crowds of people to try a slip past down corridors, but you can hear your own shoes echoing and if you're talking to someone as you walk it feels as though the whole world can hear what you're saying. One of the most striking differences is the wards at night. About 85% of them have the lights for the bays turned off which makes it very obvious when there's a doctor in with a patient as the light is on by the bed and the curtain is drawn round, and you can hear a low pitched mumbling.
On the medical admissions ward you feel kinda guilty when you have to go and clerk a patient in the middle of the night as you've just got round to them because you have to turn on their light and wake them up. And as they're new into the hospital you have to do a full clerking, bloods, often a cannula and examination which is quite time consuming. The later in the night it gets the more awkward it becomes because it's hard enough trying to sleep on a ward without someone going on in the next bed!
However, from my limited experience of night shifts I can say that I enjoyed them but I can appreciate how hard they can be, especially if you are an early bird. Good luck to all staff who have to work nights in a hospital.
The most surreal and yet amusing experience of a night shift......going home as everyone gets up. You get to see the hospital waking up and beginning a new day; breakfast being bought round to the patients, lights coming on in the wards, and bleary-eyed staff wandering in to start their day.

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