Eyes Wide Shut…!!!

Eyes Wide Shut!

A week end of varying jobs that included some major stuff which I’m going to have to leave until a later date. This being due to the fact that a couple of jobs were very ‘out of the norm’ and could be traced back to the caller. I’ll wait until the heat dies down on those ones maybe.

Manky Mucky Infected Feet...!!!

But one job that stands out (from an Ambulance point of view but not necessarily the patients point of view) is the incident involving OTCs (Over The Counter medications). Every day/week/month/year more and more medications are available to buy at the chemist whereas at one time they were only given out on prescription from a doctor.

But as information becomes more readily available and a whole raft of instructions and guidance comes in the medication packaging it is assumed that the user will either read the ‘patient information sheet’ or take care when taking their medicine.

Eye Medicine

And so we lead on to the case of the woman arriving in A/E with a wet flannel clamped to her eye after using ‘eye drops’. This, you would think, is a pretty easy task…application of eye drops via a ‘dropper’ onto the afflicted eye. But unfortunately this lady also suffers from a fungal foot infection. This is also being treated with a medicine.

Anti Fungal Foot Medicine...NOT Eye Medicine...!!!

Using my imagination I could see a whole story line unfolding like a plot in the early stages of an episode of ‘Casualty’. With a little more thought power I also envisaged Michael Burke talking through the scene with back ground music from the BBC ‘999’ programme. “Dud, dud duhhh!”  I asked the lady what had happened and she explained that she was in a rush and instead of using ‘OPTREX’  eye drops she had foolishly used ‘Curanail’  anti-fungal paint instead!!!

“OUCH!”

On a more positive note I did inform her that if she was to put ‘OPTREX’ on her feet then she would not trip up at night! I think she saw the funny side…although only with one eye!