Heaven

DAY 183 THURSDAY 17 JANUARY 2002

After a month of being hospital orderly, I have my work schedule mastered.

5.00-7.00 am Write first draft of previous day’s events.

7.00-7.30 am Draw curtains, make bed, put on kettle, shave, bathe and dress.

Prepare lists and make coffee for Linda – dash of milk, one sweetener.

7.30-8.00 am Surgery, usually twenty to thirty inmates who collect prescriptions or need to make an appointment to see the doctor at nine.

8.00-8.30 am Deliver slips for absentees from work to the farm, the works, stores, mess, education department, north and south blocks and the gate.

8.30-8.45 am Breakfast in the dining room.

9.00-10.30 am Doctor’s surgery.

11.00 am Acupuncture, usually three or four inmates.

11.10-11.40 am Read this morning’s draft of this diary.

11.50 am Wake up patients having acupuncture; Linda

removes needles.

12 noon Lunch.

12.40 pm Phone Alison at the penthouse, and collect my mail from south unit office.

1.00-3.00 pm Continue second draft of yesterday’s work.

3.00-4.00 pm Check in arrivals from other prisons. Give short introductory talk, then take their blood pressure and weight, and carry out diabetes test (urine).

4.30-4.50 pm Evening surgery. Those inmates who ordered prescriptions this morning can pick them up as they’ll have been collected from a chemist in Boston during the afternoon.

4.50 pm Linda leaves for the day.

5.00 pm Supper.

5.30-7.00 pm Final writing session, totalling nearly six hours in all.

7.00 pm Unlock the end room for use by outside personnel, e.g. Listeners, Jehovah’s Witnesses, drug and alcohol counselling sessions and prison committees.

7.10-8.00 pm Read through the day’s mail, make annotated notes and post to Alison.

8.00-10.00 pm Doug and Carl join me for a coffee, to chat or watch a film on TV.

10.30 pm Read until I feel sleepy.

The hospital orderly has the longest and most irregular hours of any prisoner. It’s seven days a week. On Saturday and Sunday after Linda and Gail have left I sweep the hospital ward, lobby, lavatory and bathroom before mopping throughout. (Although I can’t remember when I last did any domestic chores, I find the work therapeutic. I wouldn’t, however, go so far as saying I enjoy it.)

I then check my supplies, and restock the cupboards. If I’m short of anything, I make out an order form for the stores (memo pads, lavatory paper and today for a new vacuum cleaner – the old one has finally given up).

Some prisoners tell me that they would rather work in the kitchen or the officers’ mess because they get more food. I’d rather be in the hospital, and have a bath and a good night’s sleep.