The line being too tired and being unsafe to practise
Dear Aunt Madison
I had repatriated a young female patient from Marmaris, Turkey. She was a stretcher patient with an unfixed trimalleolar fracture.
We had left Marmaris at 02:00 and our journey back to the UK was via Istanbul and Frankfurt with long transit times between our connecting flights as well as significant delays. We eventually arrived at Gatwick at 20:00. From there the patient was to be taken by road ambulance to Sheffield.
I called the assistance company on arrival at Gatwick to check if it would be okay to hand the patient over to the ambulance crew, one of whom was a fully qualified paramedic. The patient was in good shape and the ambulance crew were perfectly capable of continuing the patient’s care until her final destination.
I was told this was unacceptable and, despite my long duty time and associated fatigue, I was told to continue to Sheffield where a taxi would be arranged to return me from Sheffield to my car at Gatwick. I got back to Gatwick at 04:00. My opinion was that this was unnecessary and forced me to work feeling over-tired.
What do you suggest when assistance companies put this sort of unnecessary demand on us and refuse to discuss issues of fatigue?
Aunt Madison writes:
I agree this appears to be poor practice on behalf of the assistance company as the hours you had worked were unnecessarily extended beyond reason and in reality rendered you unsafe to practice.
My advice is to always carefully consider all the information, including the duty times, before you accept a repatriation and discuss any issue that concerns you well in advance.
If you could see you would be fatigued and unsafe to practice, but the company still insisted on your unnecessarily extended duty time, you should not accept the trip. You owe it to yourself to protect your registration.