Visitors

Visitors are great, especially if I know them...
In what must be a new record, I received my first visitor today only two minutes after sitting on the chair in my room.
Unfortunately the visitor who entered my room to the protests of his attending nurse turned out to be a somewhat confused and elderly Croatian fellow patient who decided he wanted to sit on my bed (at least I hope that is what he wanted as he was dropping his pants at the time).
His nurse managed to direct him to a vacant chair successfully, so successfully in fact that he then decided he going nowhere. Fine by me, but as he didn't know where he was and I don't speak much Croatian there wasn't much conversation to be had. The staff had decided that this was all inappropriate anyway, and a crew of them managed to move him on... only for the whole process to be repeated 5minutes later (my room has no door).
The third time around things were a bit more of a concern as he was acting more aggressively toward the staff, so the next thing I hear is over the hospital intercom: "Code grey, ward 9, room 8, repeat, Code grey, ward 9, room 8 (security call). Now my reputation within the hospital for attracting trouble was being broadcast...
On the forth occasion (that I know of as I had to go downstairs for a while for an ultrasound) the old boy actually swiped a nurse with his cane (without any real force). I haven't seen him in the couple of hours since so I assume he has been sedated, strapped to the bed or removed from the ward. It still might be an interesting night.
Could have been worse, we saw a guy up here in handcuffs the other week...
I know I have praised the staff before but this is an opportunity to point how wide their skill set is. This is a public hospital and it is the public in all it's glorious contradictions that walks in through the door, for good or bad. It's certainly far from the first time I have seen them deal with confused, drugged up, angry or abusive patients (or visitors...). As usual, the staff just get the job done.
Cheers, Pete