Love Shines among the Papers
“My dear Maurice, when are you going to make up your mind, the architect is waiting to start the house designs and you are changing your mind every time you look at it, that’s driving me crazy?”
Maurice, a doctor and Shirley a physiotherapist had met a few times at medical functions, it didn’t take long for their chemistry to start working and after a short courting they married.
The honeymoon was surely over, Maurice and Shirley had moved into a comfortable two- bedroom rental unit facing onto a canal. The price was close to blowing their budget but with careful planning they would still be able to save for the deposit on their dream home. Moving north to enjoy the all year round near perfect temperature, luck was with them in finding satisfactory positions.
Hospital duty was very demanding, Maurice had specialised in heart diseases, there were times when there was such a back load of urgent cases and no staff or beds to spare that he would take some very risky chances, hoping that they would pass unnoticed, for example he would send home a patient who was not quite ready for discharge, making way for another, although he always made sure there were reliable home care nurses to attend to them.
One particular day with the usual frustration of dealing with the bare minimum of staff he was not fully concentrating on some very intricate details of a triple heart bi-pass surgery when a theatre nurse checked him on some sloppy details
The nurse reported the incident and Maurice was subjected to many meetings with senior staff, countless medical reports until finally he was stood down till further notice.
No one would listen to his claims of sheer chaos within the hospital till well into the final hearing when the health minister, Michael Jones, realised there was a cover up and asked for a full report on hospital spending and allocation.
His wife Shirley had received lots o f sarcastic criticism from members of staff she worked with, and it was only her belief that there was a huge problem within the hospital that gave her strength to give her full support for what frustration Maurice had to work under. With the ongoing buck passing, political jargon and tons of lies there seem to be no light at the end of the tunnel and Maurice realised that all this was affecting his health, he had a feeling of being an outcast, there was no leeway from the senior staff who were using their power to save their own skins.
They had both decided they could no longer carry on in this way and started making arrangements to immigrate to America, but needed to have any claims against his skills cleared.
Somehow the television network of currant affairs heard about his plight and soon their skilled reporters were uncovering much mishandling of health funds, which included extravagant spending on sometimes-useless items and many cases of costly lavish dinner parties. With countrywide coverage the pressure was on for a full revue in the spending and allocation of health funds.
With the help of Maurice and fellow doctors a new program for their hospital was drawn up and with the facts given by the news media most senior staff were either dismissed or severely reprimanded. Maurice was reinstated to his previous position with a full apology, his incident in the operating theatre was classed as a misfortunate episode of his otherwise top skills as a surgeon, brought on by the stress of hospital bad management.
“ Okay Shirley, I have made my final decision on the house plans, better ring the builder so we can get it started, I just can’t find any fault in your suggestions on the kitchen layout, I should know that females have an expertise on the successful running of this important part of any house”
Word count. 658.
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