The Yorkshire Vet: When you get the bank holiday call - Julian Norton
I’m writing this week’s column from the office at our practice in Thirsk. It’s a bank holiday and the telephones have not been diverted as they should have been. Nobody knows quite what has gone wrong- they are programmed remotely by computer people and should be transferred automatically. This mistake happens occasionally and goes a long way to spoiling an otherwise relaxing day off. It’s usually Anne that steps in to cover, but today it’s me. I’m waiting for 1) the situation to be sorted by the computer people and 2) a client to come down with her dog which has a swollen face after having caught a bird. It sounds as if it needs veterinary attention, even though she has to come quite a long way. Another client needs some flea and tick medication, which is a simple task that I can easily absorb whilst I’m waiting.
This mistake happens occasionally and goes a long way to spoiling an otherwise relaxing day off. It’s usually Anne that steps in to cover, but today it’s me. I’m waiting for 1) the situation to be sorted by the computer people and 2) a client to come down with her dog which has a swollen face after having caught a bird. It sounds as if it needs veterinary attention, even though she has to come quite a long way. Another client needs some flea and tick medication, which is a simple task that I can easily absorb whilst I’m waiting.
But I have no real grounds for complaining about the current problem. For most of my veterinary career, this kind of weekend or bank holiday job would have been totally normal. Holiday time was shared between all the vets on the rota, more or less fairly, and in the spring, bank holidays were always ridiculously busy. Difficult lambings, calvings and cows with staggers would punctuate every day, making it impossible to arrange any semblance of normal life while on duty. On a bank holiday, an on-call vet would never invite friends or family for lunch, let alone risk a trip out, even if it was close to home. I learnt this on one of my very first weekends on duty. I was on second call, which normally meant a quiet weekend; I’d only be needed if the vet on first got swamped or needed a hand, or if two emergencies arrived at the same time. I had invited my parents for a trip to Rievaulx Abbey, the imposing Cistercian abbey which nestles by the river Rye outside of Helmsley. It was a sunny day and the place was full of visitors. But the peace and tranquillity of this ancient space was soon interrupted by the loud beeping noise coming from the pager in my pocket. Pagers do not exist anymore, but back then, these matchbox-sized instruments of torture were the way that emergency vets were summoned. They were stress-inducing for several reasons. The first was the noise, which was sudden and insistent, demanding instant action; another was that there was no way of knowing what the emergency might be until we “phoned in”. One colleague responded to his pager going off on a Sunday afternoon with the usual trepidation, only to find that Doris, the lady who answered the telephones, had an abundance of soft fruit and her message was no more urgent than, “would you like some plums?” He was somewhat disgruntled!
Later, the awful bleepers were replaced by Message Pagers, so at least you had an idea of what was facing you when the thing went off.
It wasn’t so easy to find a telephone near Rievaulx Abbey thirty years ago, but somehow, I eventually got the details and had to rush back to Thirsk to assist with a dog with a serious condition that needed surgery. I never did get to explore the ruins of Rievaulx that day and I don’t think I even managed to meet up again with my parents later on. Bank holidays, weekends, evenings and nights on call are the toughest part of a vet’s job but also the most satisfying, and I have loved may of the experiences I have had over the years, but I have to say I don’t miss the unrelenting hours of hard work. A short wait for the phones to be fixed is no real trauma in comparison.